


Forces Beyond Salvation

by felicia_angel



Category: Law & Order: SVU, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Supernatural (TV) Fusion, Amanda has Questionable Friends, Demon!Dean, Episode: s15e01 Surrender Benson, F/M, Gen, M/M, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Esteem Issues, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-23 20:57:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6129847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felicia_angel/pseuds/felicia_angel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which someone else is at the door when Lewis hears a knock, and suddenly, the SVU team is thrown into the world of the supernatural.<br/>Though, to be fair, they at least have Barba to lead them, even if he's very reluctant to do so...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Harsh Introductions

There was a knock on the door, forcing Lewis to look over at where the interruption came from before smirking at Olivia. She was tied to the bed pretty well, with her hands cuffed above her head onto a wrought-iron bed frame, and so far had only given him issues after he'd pulled the tape off her mouth and he'd gotten ready to start on the real fun. He didn't need to hear her scream for him when he finally fucked her, but he found the whole thing so far, even without the sex that dear Olivia had to offer, to be just too much fun to do everything else, but so far she wasn't afraid of him. She was still giving him lip, still trying to make him focus on her instead of anyone else, and it would only make things all the better when he finished with whoever was at the door. Maybe that would break her.

Lewis walked over to the door, leaning enough to hide the gun while Olivia writhed and attempted to get loose on the bed, too far away for anyone to hear and once more gagged. Lewis frowned when he saw the guy standing at the door, looking a bit like he was simply grateful, the man's green eyes seeming to take in Lewis as only a potential ally, despite the height difference. At the same time, Lewis wasn't much taller than him, and the man looked odd, in a dark Henley and deep red button-up, with dark Levis and black boots. For a guy, he also looked almost pretty in a way, and Lewis began to daydream about how he could use that against Olivia.

"Oh man, you have no idea how good it is to see you," the man said, sounding almost relieved, "Listen, you have a phone on you? My brother's been calling me non-stop and freakin' ate the minutes on my phone, and now my boss is tryin' to get hold of me." Oh, it'll be fun to kill him slowly in front of Olivia as he fucks her, not to mention the man is wide and obviously strong - overpowering him will be as much fun as it was Olivia, even with a gun for support. He might even have this guy rape her first, before Lewis finishes him off and then takes her.

"I got a lan line, if that helps," Lewis says, opening the door for the man, "but my own cell is charging in the bedroom."

"Dude, any working phone helps out right now," the man says as he walks in, looking around the living room area before spotting the phone, "I tell you, man, things have been hairy since my brother got a bug up his ass."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, keeps calling, trying to figure out stupid stuff," he picked up the phone and started to dial, not even bothering to check the line or anything, just dialing by memory. "You know," the man gave him a smile as he looked back at Lewis, "the whole 'where are you', 'what are you doing', 'don't be an asshole', 'don't get into a fight'," he stopped dialing and brought the phone up to his ear, adding, "'don't kill anyone'."

Lewis was fast, but somehow, this guy was faster, and before his mind could catch up with whatever move the man had pulled, Lewis was on the ground, his gun in the man's hand and a heavy boot pressed into Lewis' back, far enough up to make him stay down at the promise of danger and extreme pain. His midsection also hurt, as if the man had attempted to just punch through him, instead of hitting him hard enough to knock the wind out of Lewis and put him on the floor.

"See, my brother's a right dick, isn't he?" the man continues conversationally, "but my boss...well, he's a bit worse. Ten times worse. First murderer worse," the pressure builds on Lewis' back as the man kneels or something, the cold feel of a gun on the back of his head and the sound of the safety clicking off suddenly making Lewis angry at himself and this man for trying to take away his freedom and his ability to do whatever the hell he wants. "And you know, man, it's nothing personal...well, ok, it's kinda personal, I saw what you did on the news, and I gotta go with what the bossman says. After all, you follow a line long enough, you're gonna find all the bad seeds in the bunch."

A sound, quiet but obviously that of someone struggling hard enough to scrap metal against metal, reaches them as the man cocks his head, smirking down at Lewis with eyes that show no mercy, fear, or anything else. "You sly dog, you still have her around? Well, that just makes my day all the better. Let's give you a nice little preview of your ultimate destination, should we?"

The cold feel of the gun comes down hard on Lewis' head, and everything blacks out.

\---

Dean manages to glance into the bedroom, confirming that indeed, this was the William Lewis from the news. Well, that was perfect, then, and he was suddenly grateful for being directed over here. He might have lied to Lewis about who sent him here, or the fact that he'd actually just chosen this place to have fun with whoever was inside and, seeing the half-demonized, all-human soul, he'd decided to just end the bastard and maybe free whoever he had, but now...

Well, now he was gonna have some fun. After this, they wouldn't dare come after him. That was the point of half the shit he did, really - go around, be kinda a hero, fill his need for violence. He has to pause to look back at the woman again, the detective that had been captured by Lewis and held for going on four days now. It's not the length of time he spent in Hell, sure, but what he sees in her...

_Well now...she's interesting._

He's not about to just shoot Lewis a few times and torment him while he bleeds out, or beat him to a pulp with his fists. No, he's gonna show him a preview of what he's about to face, and maybe even have some fun with her while he's at it. Dean isn't sure why, but the thought of her and what he saw fills him with...well, with feelings that he doesn't want. He's not that man anymore, not Daddy's Little Soldier and certainly not the wind-up toy for Heaven. So if he has some fun with something Heaven would've had use for, who are they to complain? He's who he is now because of them, and they damned well know it, even if they won't admit it without some extra incentive.

The other room has a similar, but larger, bed with the same type of frame, so Dean is quick to move the mattress for later ( _Memory foam, nice_ ) and slowly turned over the frame before going back to check on the unconscious guy, wondering if he'd be good enough to give him a run or something.

No such luck, but the small kit he had - rope, blow torch, a few extra things - made Dean smile. Well, he'd only have to go back for one or two items in the Impala then, perfect.

"You are one bad, bad man," he muttered quietly, not wanting to alert the pretty woman in the next bedroom over as he moved the taller man to his new place, tying him up to the bed in the best way that allowed him to be unable to really get the leverage needed to move, but also giving Dean and the pretty woman a good amount of access, "and I'm gonna have so much fun with you."

\---

Olivia was panicking, trying desperately to get the right leverage, the right pull, so she could make sure whoever had been at the door wasn't being hurt. Lewis wasn't going to just want to rape her now - the moment he had someone else there, he'd make sure they and she would suffer before he moved on. The issue now was how secluded they were, how musty the room smelled and how the whole thing felt like a cabin as far away from civilization as you could get. If it had been summer, she might have been safe. Lewis would have to get off Long Island and instead move outward, and that would give her team time to find her.

Olivia's adrenaline rush came back in full force when the door opened and a new man walked in, concern in his eyes as he headed over to her, pulling out a key from his pocket and trying it as she struggled. "Woah, hey there, I'm here to help. I'm Dean, come on, calm down, the guy isn't gonna get you."

_NO, he is, he has to be here, you'll be killed and he'll--_

The key quickly worked to unlock her, and he helped her sit up before taking the tape off her mouth as she struggled, trying to focus as the adrenaline, pills, and vodka all only served to make her even more disoriented, her body screaming in pain from the movements while the man helped hold her up, watching her and looking around before saying, "You're that lady from the news, huh? Olivia-something...Liv right?"

She managed a nod as he smiled. "OK, good. Like I said, I'm Dean, and guy isn't about to come in here, ok?"

Olivia shook her head as he shifted to keep her still. "Hey, stop, rest. He did a number on you, huh?" he moved some of her hair to look at a darkening bruise. "Bastard. Someone hits a woman like you that hard, they gotta use force, huh?" Something about that, some nagging memory, made Olivia freeze as she looked at him, his green eyes still kind as he locked onto hers, but something seeming to change. It wasn't like Lewis', or the others that she'd faced, who'd done bad things because it was fun, or because they thought they had a reason for tormenting someone, for hurting or abusing that child or raping someone or turning a blind eye to an attack. He'd wanted her to think she was safe with him, that he'd protect her, but he also wasn't going to let her go.

Olivia attempted to fight, but the man's grip tightened, a new smile on his face - it wasn't a cruel one, but it was one that promised pain to someone, a smile that said he liked her fighting, trying to get at him, and he chuckled as she struggled against him. "You're all cop, you know that? Fine, let's do this the easy way then, and work our way up to the hard one, huh? After all, you're righteous, so it only goes to say that you'll be taken down sometime, won't you?"

She tried to scream, to yell, to do anything, but he pulled her into a tight, restrictive hug with one arm and gripped the back of her head with the other, her scalp and head already pounding from the abuse Lewis had thrown at her, before she saw his eyes go completely black. Some part of her tried to go after that sudden darkness, to attack it, but she couldn't, _no, no, not that, stop!_

Black smoke trickled out of his mouth and into hers, forcing itself into her nose and past her lips before he pulled her into a deep kiss, his tongue pushing into her mouth as more of the darkness went in, causing her to scream at the pain and violation, feeling her mind spark and scatter as the foul thing, like an oil slick, burned through her memories and herself, the attempt to push them away, to fight it, to call on her final reserve of power failing as the pain turned to sudden, dark pleasure.

_That Cassidey should've done what you wanted - screw him for leaving you alone! He calls and doesn't check on you for two days, doesn't have anyone check on you? Betcha he only brought some dime-store flowers to apologize._

_How long did it take those assholes to realize you were missing, huh? Two days, and by then, Lewis was raping that woman, was getting ready to take you away, making you watch his sick games. They probably didn't even put out a BOLO on you. Cragen's gone soft since he started fucking whores with the excuse of being 'lonely'. Right, like you're not lonely, like every guy you trusted hasn't left or done something insane and stupid._

_That Elliot guy is a piece of work. Leaving you alone, no call or talk? Betcha all he thought about was his hurt ego. Oh, poor little me, I had to do something in the line of duty and someone died, like always. All Marines are little girls, aren't they? No one else can understand their man-pain, huh?_

_Lewis got away with so much, and no one could stop him. Barba--_

**_STOP IT!_ **

The kiss ended as Olivia let out a moan of pain tinged with sexual frustration, the dark smoke coiling out of her mouth as Dean gave her a huge smile, as if proud of her rejection of whatever he was doing.

"You like that, just a bit? Want some more, Liv? Want to not worry about what you're thinking, about all the bullshit that's been building up?"

The pitch-black eyes stayed, and Olivia couldn't think, a feeling of _wrong/no/revulsion_ warring with _yes/pleasure/fatigue_ and that odd, dark promise that she'd felt earlier making her dizzy and confused, as if she wasn't sure about her own body. It was worse than when she'd frozen and couldn't fight back, when Fin had to save her at the prison. This wasn't at all like Lewis' continued work to keep her watching _watch me, Olivia, only me_ while he hurt everyone and tormented her, threatened her before instead going to another victim and making her watch, helpless and...

"no...no, please..."

Dean's grin only got wider, more feral, as he picked her up, bridal-style, and took her into the other room, putting her gently on a cushioned, fancy chair so she could look at Lewis - who was strung up, like he'd tied up his lawyer's mother before putting Olivia into the front seat of a car and shoving sleeping pills down her throat to keep her quiet. He was awake, glaring at them, but restrained, gagged, unable to move from his new, open, and vulnerable position.

"Pretty little Liv gave me the rundown of what you like," Dean said, walking over and pulling out a huge Bowie knife from his boot, picking up the blowtorch and igniting it. "I'm not one to smoke, but I do know that cigarettes only give you so much fun." The blade during a red color as he heated it and walked over to Lewis. "Liv ain't gonna join in yet, though...that fun time will be later, after I take care of your attitude. How about it?" He wasn't human, he was darkness and oily smoke that Liv couldn't escape from, and she wanted to scream but couldn't, she couldn't do anything, the disorienting effect of whatever he'd done, of the smoke and oil that she'd choked on still making it hard for her to do much than just sit and watch.

"Well," Dean said as he seemed to find the right area he wanted to start at, "let's start with this preview of what you're about to get downstairs, shall we?"

Lewis screamed through the gag, and Liv couldn't move to save him, didn't want to move despite it being her duty, as Dean moved the knife away and checked the burn area before continuing, hitting more and more areas for various amounts of times and with varying pressures, alternating burning and cutting shallowly into Lewis the same way he'd done with her, in another darkened room, and she can't focus or watch or...

Dean stops from the torture, putting the now-cooled knife down before looking back over at Olivia, going over and lifting her up effortlessly to a standing position, looking at her with his green eyes, black leaking through the edges of his pupils as he grins at her.

"Time to have fun, Liv...you want at him, I know you do, so let's see what you wanna do to this bastard."

She shakes her head as he leans in, Olivia still weak from the first assault so she couldn't hardly move to defend herself, and he kisses her deeply as the black oil-smoke feeling overwhelms her, fills her, and all she wants is to hurt the people who hurt her, the person before her who murdered and raped and killed and got away with it as he smiled and joked, made Barba look like an idiot when he wasn't, manipulated the system and who _wasn't going to get away this time, not this time_.

She screams in her own mind as he pulls away, but she also feels light and free, as he hands her the knife and whispers in her ear and in her mind, "Let me help you with this, Liv. Let me make this all better. No one is gonna blame you for this, not after what he did."

Olivia was still screaming, but it wasn't a loud, and when she looked at Lewis, his eyes now showing a sign of fear, of realizing how screwed _he was_ , but at the same time, he was angry at her...at her ability, at her new strength, and...

_Elliot would...wouldn't...would do..._

**_He's not here, though. He left us. And you know he'd do this. He wouldn't even pause and think, he never does and he would've thrown this guy into the wall for just flashing the girls. Rollins would've shot him right between the eyes if he came after her. Amaro would bitch about how hard of a challenge it was, how hurt he feels now, for having beat him to death. Fin would understand, help out even, hide the body for you. Munch wouldn't even hem or haw, he'd get down to business and not apologize for anything. What are we really afraid of? Why are we stopping from giving Lewis all he deserves?_ **

She didn't answer, instead standing with the help of Dean and looking at the glare Lewis leveled at her. She hates Lewis, and who would know what she was about to do?

_I will. I will know...and I can't...I can't..._

**Then shut your pretty mouth for now, and I'll do it for you. But make no mistake, you _will_ do it by the end, and you'll thank me for it later.**

\---

It had been almost seven days since Lewis got Olivia, and everyone was currently trying very hard to not freak out. Lewis' lawyer and possible girlfriend almost didn't believe them, saying that they had to be lying, but her mother's very-real injuries and naming of Lewis as her attacker had stopped all of that. IAB was doing their best to find her, allowing SVU to look but not get near the scenes, and the leash was only getting longer the more days passed after their last lead on Lewis - a hardware store where various implements that he was probably using on Liv now had been bought, and the list matched what he used on his last few girlfriends and victims before they were found badly hurt or dead.

The only good news was that the car he'd been in had not left Long Island, but the area of beach to cover was too large for anyone. The local police force was doing their best as well, but it was getting more and more to the point where Fin and everyone was starting to hope that Lewis had left Olivia alive and just...

Fin didn't know. At this point, he was ready to shoot the man on-sight like a rabid dog, and he was doing his best to keep that anger from overpowering him. He knows Amaro is freaking out, and Rollins is barely holding it together as she attempts to focus herself when his phone rings from an unknown number. He doesn't even bother to look or think about it, just answers, "Fin," when it connects.

" _fin_. _..help..._ "

"Liv!?" His surprise nearly gets Rollins to slam on the breaks before she pulls over safely instead, Fin doing his best to focus and ask, "Liv, where are you? What's going on?"

" _...can't...I don't...help..._ " She sounds weak, wrecked, and he remembers her after he pulled off that prison guard from her, after Elliot left, but...this is worse. Like something is broken and she's barely holding on.

He's afraid this is just Lewis playing them, and that makes him not turn on the speaker until he hears something else in the background, muffled, before a new voice speaks up.

" _You're a naughty woman, Liv. Didn't think you'd managed that. Hey, you one of her friends? I'd shut up and listen if you want to get her and Lewis._ " A cold, dark laugh that makes Fin's skin crawl, " _For a man who can dish it out, little bitch couldn't take it. He took her to this house on the north area,_ " and address rolls out as Fin writes it down, Rollins starting to read it off while the man continues, " _and Liv is being no fun anymore. You'd better come in, she's about to break. Might find poor old Lewis as a stain if she does. Not that I wouldn't blame her, but tell you what. If you want, I can always do something to make him move a bit, you can claim self-defense when the cops for cops come by._ "

The line went dead with a sudden crash, and Rollins was already pulling out the siren and lights as Fin ended the call on his end and called it in, Amaro and the others starting towards the address as the local police and medics began to swarm to the area.

"Fin," Rollins speaks as they drive, weaving as fast as she can through traffic, "who was that?"

"I dunno...but whoever it was, he's worse than Lewis."

\---

Amaro is the closest and ends up in the house, following the officers who go to find Lewis in a back bedroom, one looking ill as the paramedics move to him and then to the ruined kitchen, where Olivia lays curled into a ball, a spilled cylinder of salt, as well as odd-colored, clear vomit to one side. She's shaking, her shirt and jeans torn, her belt and shoes missing, her eyes unfocused and hardly even looking at him, only reacting to noise as she tried to move enough to get herself ready to fight if needed. It's not really anything like the sergeant he's had to deal with and come to respect, and Amaro does his best to focus on calming her down, bringing her back to the here and now instead of whatever place she's gone to.

He instead focuses on mentally listing what he can, in case he has to go up and talk about it in court. Her clothing is bloody, and Amaro hopes more of it is from Lewis than any wounds she sustained. If what Fin's reported was true, then someone had been tormenting both Liv and Lewis, and as much as Amaro wants the man to suffer, he doesn't want Liv to be there while it's happening. Seven days alone or watching one psychopath or another torment someone would probably only result in her having an even harder time of dealing, and some part of him views her as a kind of big sister. He wants Liv to be safe after all she's been through, and to know she's safe.

The knife was dropped as soon as he started to talk and calm her down, though Liv made no other move to either get up or go to Amaro, let alone the medics or others that were securing the scene and getting Lewis out. Amaro slowly starts to help her up, Liv falling forward and into his shoulder as he called for some help, another medic checking her over as Amaro managed to hold her while also shedding his coat to put around her, not caring that it would later be lost to evidence. She was shaking badly, trembling to the point where he almost thought she might break if he didn't hold her up, and seemed only half-aware of him being there.

"I got ya, Liv, you're safe, I have you."

She started shivering even harder, shaking her head and trying to move away from him, a sob escaping her lips briefly before the paramedics manage to get her onto a cot and into the back of a waiting ambulance, Amaro also managing to follow in the hopes of helping out and making sure Benson would be alright after all of this. He doubts that will happen - he knows this isn't something she'll recover from all that quickly, if at all - but he has to make sure that at least she knows she's safe now.

\---

Rafael Barba knows that hiding in plain sight is the best way to hide, and he's done it for long enough that he's comfortable when confronted with other beings like himself. Getting into Harvard had been a boon, as had finding friends like Eddie and Alex when he was younger, even if his school and college years had resulted in them drifting apart. He knows he's been even more apart from others since he realized that being ruthless, climbing the ladder, and hiding in plain sight was the best bet. Finding out everything, after his _ma_ had tearfully confessed the truth one night, had kept Rafael from wanting to get further into that world, and he was glad to stay as far away from it as he could, the few brief touches he had with it in his youth resulting in him leaving his neighborhood the moment that scholarship was available, and becoming a man who dealt with human monsters instead of the ones that some believed he was supposed to, and having to keep his two friends at arm's length for the majority of his life, even giving up on the lady he'd once thought he'd loved.

Of course, that didn't mean he _didn't_ use his abilities, because when you're someone who's nature makes you considered an abomination first and a useful tool second, you learn how to hide your abilities until they're needed, and use them when they're required and when there wouldn't be witnesses. His defensive abilities had kept him safe the few times he ran into something that knew what he was, or knew that he wasn't fully human, but it had also been the reason he stayed out of a fight with anyone who was normal, instead using his brain and ability to talk and make people antagonist towards him, changing focus or having them show off their ugly sides. Not that it kept him from getting hit and bloody, his natural healing abilities only working if he wasn't thinking about keeping them from working, though by the time he'd started getting into fights he'd managed to figure out how to suppress it completely anyway. It kept Barba healthy, at least, without really having to worry about what he ate or drank, and not having a cold during that season was always helpful. Not so much when a monster noticed it and happened to be the school nurse, but he managed feign the occasional cold or flu when he needed a day off.

He knew Alex thought his leaving their neighborhood had been because of what happened between the two over Yelina, but in truth...while he cared for her, and did love her, he also was afraid of what might happen if she learned what he was, or what it would mean for them and any children they had. He'd jumped at the scholarship because he'd seen _something_ around their neighborhood, and he knew, after a confrontation that resulted in his first true, powered fight against said something (the nurse had disappeared on his own, but Barba had still been freaked out for a bit), that he felt he _had_ to leave. Barba needed to learn more about what he was and how to control it, not put Eddie, Alex, or Yelina in danger, like they almost were those two times. He wasn't going to do that to any of them, and if it meant giving her up...at least she'd be safe with Alex, and happier as the crusader's wife.

That the books he found in Harvard had only made him hate what happened to his _Ma_ in order for him to be around, was not something he felt like talking to anyone about, even when Eddie or when Alex, on the brief occasion they'd seen each other after high school, had noticed it and demanded answers. He managed to convince them it was just a particularly racist classmate, and pulled that side of him, the one he'd been so _gifted,_ further in and away, hoping to hide it's influence from his two friends. Eddie was loyal and had his own issues, but he always called or came to either Barba or Alex for advise when he really needed it. Alex was working his way up through the ranks and doing good for the community by bringing up their causes in the best and most flashy way he could find, but he and Barba were still close, and Barba trusted him deeply.

Barba wasn't about to tell either of them that he'd just read that he was considered an abomination, that there were apparently ways to use his blood or organs or even other things for spells and ways to protect yourself. That the best way to trap a thing like Barba was to find a friend or lover and hold them...that the quickest way to get a thing to reveal itself was through the humans it connected with, or that most abominations ensnared humans to keep them safe. If a human was a longtime friend of any abomination or monster, it was obviously under it's thrall, and would be killed with the monster.

So for all that others might complain about his work schedule and inability to see them, or his abrasiveness and harsh nature, Barba _was_ helping, and no one would be able to use Eddie or Alex or Yelina or anyone else to trap him. None of them - not his old friends, or his family, or even the SVU team he won cases for now, would be hurt because of him.

Eddie was still the brawn, Alex was still the heart, and Barba was still the mouth. Even when he could only think of going to check on Olivia and try to make her smile a bit, maybe tell some amusing joke to get her to know someone wasn't going to be treating her like she was made of glass. The others had already come and gone, if the flowers were any indication, and she was asleep, or at least her eyes were closed, when he arrived. He was grateful for his suitcase handle, though - seeing her like that made him grip the case a bit too tightly, but luckily it didn't make a sound or alert her to his presence.

Talks and cheering up could wait. Liv was... _hurt,_ in a way that he and only a few others could see. It's one of the few things that Barba hasn't been able to ignore - the sudden flashes or insights, the views of a person's aura or soul or whatever it is. Some people tended to have a normal-looking one - it wasn't like he kept a mental catalog of the colors ( _and even if it_ did - _which no one could prove - it wasn't like he was able to look up what those colors_ meant... _and if he_ did, _he knew how to clear out his internet browser history_ ) but the few slips his vision had always gave him a show of those auras. It was good when figuring out who was really guilty or not in cases, though he didn't use that as a basis for his ability to throw people into jail for the horrible things they did.

The problem he always had with Liv, though, was how _bright_ she was. The moment he'd noticed the glowing light, he knew he was seeing someone that was different. Actually, upon spotting the three, and considering the mix of colors - reds, oranges, and shades of indigo - he'd at first thought he was seeing all three people. When he finally looked at them all fully, he realized the multi-colored brightness was coming from Liv, and it never seemed to dull at any point. Right now, it's all red and dulled, muted, like some dark oil had tried to cover her, and Barba's glad she's asleep. His power is itching right now, to do _something,_ so he quietly walks over to where she is, glancing around and behind a curtain to make sure they're alone, or at least that no one else is awake, before moving to slowly put a hand on her forehead, brushing away some hair. She frowns in her sleep, shifting under a nightmare that only seems to come from the oil slick, and Barba barely manages to not glare at it before putting his hand fully on her forehead, concentrating on his own powers and banishing the oil. It leaves a sour taste in his mouth, like grit or something equally distasteful, and it's too hard to pull out without using more of his own power and probably drawing unwanted attention to them. He pulls out enough to get it to stop giving her nightmares for tonight, at least, and relaxes as he feels her relax, drifting into some odd dream that wouldn't turn into a nightmare, though it wasn't exactly a pleasant dream either. She probably wouldn't remember it, or she might remember the odder parts, but beyond that, it was at least something to help her heal. The lack of nightmare seemed to make the oil go down, bringing back more of color to Liv instead of the dulled ones that were mixed in. He doubts he can pull out whatever it is that's making her soul so dull, but he has to hope that he can at least help her make it less a part of herself, or that the trauma won't manifest and make her soul as dark as some of the ones he's seen of those who have been victimized once too much. Rollins had flashes of that at times, especially when that sister of hers was around, and it made Barba both want to heal Rollins or slap her sister for being such an attention-grabbing fuck-up. Fin's acceptance of his life, regrets and all, had only meant his soul was calming and cool, with sudden sparks of anger or aggression at injustice or criminals, or worry over his partners or family. Amaro was righteous in a way that made Barba's teeth ache, not in the same way Liv was. Amaro had a red-tinged aura, but a darker one, with it calming to a pinkish hue (wouldn't _that_ make the macho Amaro sputter) when his daughter was around, but the other colors he had as compared to Liv's - a bright yellow hint, mud-colored orange and blue - only seemed to make some part of Barba realize he wasn't...something. Barba's other side, the side he'd gotten from his real father and had to hide for so long, wanted to wrap Liv up in light and warmth and to not have any muddy or oil-slick signs on her auras. Barba himself liked Liv because she didn't take his bullshit, and because even though he wasn't about to set himself up for a fall by attacking people legally without proof, he was quick on his feet and had, for the most part, trusted the SVU team to get the evidence, provide him with what he needed, and let him run the court-side of things with little to no hassle.Rollins and Liv, the first to meet him, had put their trust in him, and that had allowed the rest of SVU to follow suit as well. Barba blamed that _completely_ on why his power wanted nothing more than to come out and make sure the two were ok, or that it reacted when they were stressed or in danger, or when Rollins' aura grew dulled as her addictions, spurred on by whatever had hurt her, came to life.

He's shifting to put up the 'Get Well' card - something overly sappy to the point of causing diabetes, but the only card he'd found that didn't invoke God or some higher power - when someone walks in and pauses, flashes of white-blue making Barba freeze, pulling his power and the like into himself in the hopes it would keep him hidden as he set the card down and turns, acting surprised to see the man standing at the doorway. Not that he's not surprised - the man is easily about six foot, with dark hair that looked like a permanent bed-head look, and a cheap suit under a tan trench coat of some sort. His eyes are a piercing blue color that has Barba frozen as they look at him, and behind him is a rainbow of swirling colors, tinged and brightened by white-blue and gold that makes Barba's eyes water if he looks at it too long. He tries to focus on the man and not his aura as Barba straightened to his full height, even if it was a few inches shorter, in an effect to figure out who was trying to interrupt Benson's rest and possibly get them to leave.

"Who are you?" he demanded, though quietly and from a safe distance. The man tilted his head, his eyes catching Barba's for a second as Barba did his best to not focus on them or the man or anything else that might give himself away, before the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a badge, the familiar FBI logo on it with a photo of the man, looking a bit confused, and a name that he barely reads before it's closed.

"I'm Agent Moscone. I wished to speak to Ms. Benson about her attacker." He glanced at Benson, then back at Barba. "Forgive my timing, I was told she was accepting visitors."

Barba glared at him. "What's her attacker got to do with the FBI? Lewis is in another ward."

Moscone frowned and nodded. "Yes. He is also not the one I am interested in. I was speaking about the man who attacked them both. As Lewis is...indisposed," that was a kind way of putting it, "I wished to speak to Ms. Benson and get the information I could from her."

" _Detective_ Benson is resting, so maybe you should do your own police work?" Barba wasn't sure why he was so defensive, just that he's worried something will happen to her if he lets her out of his sight with this guy around, and he's never run into something that glows like that - the thing he'd fought in high school had been darker, more dangerous, but that didn't stop him from wanting to make sure that the thing focused on him and not Olivia.

"I do wish to warn her, about the dangers of the man who attacked her."

"what type of dangers?" Barba turned to look at Benson, who was half-awake and looked disoriented, her voice scratchy from whatever trauma had befallen her - he'd heard conflicting reports, one saying sulfur, the other saying salt - before she'd gotten a phone and been rescued. He wants to go and have her sleep again, but he doubts he can with the man in the room.

Moscone walks up to her, though not too close at least, and glances briefly at Barba before saying, "Only if you are up to speaking about it."

Olivia is quiet, as if uncertain what this entails, before nodding. Moscone waits before asking, "Do you know the name of the man who attacked you?"

Barba is silent as he sees the dark spot on Olivia's soul seem to try to overtake her, but her light shines through, cutting it apart on it's own, before she says, "yes." Barba is now paying attention, wondering who came after her and what this has to do with the FBI. "dean winchester."

Moscone looks almost...sad, as if that news is too heavy of a weight, then nods. "You may be in a great deal of danger. I worry that you may have caught Dean's attention," Moscone is telling Benson as Barba tries hard to not seethe at the idea of her being in a situation he couldn't help with, any situation where he might only stand by and hope for her safe return. "I also worry he will bring unwanted attention to your group, and to you." Something in his tone said that wasn't just meant for Benson, and Barba frowned at him before the man walked a bit closer to Benson, his movement non-threatening and his hand gently going to rest on Benson's own. "I'll speak to your friend about this. He'll have my card and contact number. If anything happens, please give me a call. No matter what, I'll come here to protect you."

The moment he touches Benson's hand, the oily mark recoils, pops, and becomes incorporated with the rest of the light of Benson's aura, seeming to make it a more iridescent shade, oil mixed with water, as Benson relaxes, closing her eyes and once more drifting to sleep. Barba looks at Moscone in confusion as he continues to look at Benson, examining her like he was trying to figure out something.

"You're very good at hiding your presence, but you can't fool me," he told Barba, even as he kept staring at Benson, "and you've chosen an uphill battle. She _is_ in danger from Dean Winchester, but also from other forces as well."

The news makes Barba freeze before he glares at the man, the sudden urge to pull him away from Benson having him nearly forget about hiding, even after what he'd said. "You said it was just Winchester."

"There are more than one Winchester, and the ones who originally kept information on how to kill those like you are still around. However, she is in danger because of _why_ Dean Winchester is the way he is now, and what his father will do to you once he figures out that you are not fully human."

That makes Barba tense, torn between shifting away or protecting Benson. The man - thing - lets go of her hand and turns back to Barba, his eyes locking onto Barba's and keeping him in place, like a child caught by their parent. It scares him, in a way the thing he'd had to kill hadn't scared him.

"She is that bright for a reason _,_ " the thing tells Barba as he has him pinned, and Barba can almost _see_ why - strange writing, a list; _the Righteous spills blood in Hell;_ a series of locks that are shaky, rusted, breaking, and a light, a bright sunlight that's also cold - "and Dean Winchester knows that because _he_ was chosen, but managed to be cursed instead." - a strange symbol, like a check with two points on it, burned into flesh; a man with green eyes and the same soul, same colors, as Benson...the green eyes turn black, and the soul is suddenly muted, trapped - "He kept her with him, didn't let her go when he caught Lewis, for a reason. He will do his best to taint her soul, because to him, such an action will be far better than anyone learning what she is. And believe me, they will," - horrific monsters, ones he's seen but now can name; bright spots like this man, with voices that command and _force_ their will; _we are tired, we want...paradise -_ "and they will do all they can to throw her into the Pit and make her break."

Barba found himself shaking his head, breaking the eye contact and managing to look away, his head pounding as he breathed out. " _No_. I...We won't let that happen. The team, I...none of us will let that happen."

The man - thing - is quiet and seems to be looking over Barba before letting out a sigh. "I wish you the best of luck, than, Rafael Barba. You and the others will surely need it."

There was a sound, like wings flapping once to take something into air, and the two were alone once more. Barba swallowed, looking back at Benson and her bright aura - soul - before steeling himself. He wouldn't allow them to be used against her, anymore than he'd allow his friends to be used against him. He wouldn't allow it, and when the time came, he knew the others wouldn't either.

 


	2. Getting Back on Track

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Benson works to get through the trauma inflicted on her by her capture and hospitalization, Barba works to keep her sane. The SVU team gets an introduction to the ACTUAL FBI agent going after Dean Winchester.
> 
> Meanwhile, Dean Winchester receives an unwelcome call from an unwelcome party in the whole matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please remember this is demon!Dean, who is not 'restrained' by Crowley in the least. And that this is very much an AU for Supernatural as well as parts of SVU.

Olivia Benson is relieved when she's able to get out of the hospital and move to the shared apartment with Cassidey, though some part of her is beginning to feel like their relationship is wearing thin. It's a feeling she's had before, but the fact that it's coming on the heels of her abduction and...everything else...just makes the whole thing feel even worse. She wants to keep hold of this one thing, to have _something_ as a foundation, but it feels like Cassidey just doesn't want this to deal with, on top of trying to get back his badge and some sense of being a policeman again.

She goes to the therapist she normally recommends to assault victims, and he listens to her as she talks about or around her time with Lewis. He mentions her taking new self-defense classes, and also mentions that she doesn't talk about the _other_ assailant,the one who came in and so brutalized both her and Lewis.

"There isn't anything to talk about," she mutters, not wanting to breach the subject. She was there to talk about going back to her apartment, the flashes of her being attacked by Lewis, and the darker feelings that have slowly disappeared, leaving only a sense of guilt for having not fought back. She has no idea _how_ she'd have fought what happened, but she should've. He watches her and she looks away, not wanting to look at someone and admit to what happened to her, or what she did.

"There...isn't. I can't, I'm sorry."

He nods his understanding, and backs off the subject, moving to a neutral ground that ends up being about Cassidey and the potential break-up they'll have soon. "You're sure of that happening?"

"I've had enough break-ups, I know when it's coming. I'm just...I wish it wouldn't happen. I don't want to keep him around just to help me out, but I'd like to know that at least when I get back, I had someone."

**_We're a lonely little bunch, aren't we Liv? Can't even keep someone around, and you don't have to lie. What happens when you do?_ **

They end the session for the day after that, Olivia suddenly wishing for...she's not sure. To get back to work. To forget this all, to not...to...

Olivia shakes herself free of her doubts, shoving them away as she walks. She has to focus on proving herself ready to get back to work, and away from so much free time that her mind begins to start to doubt that she's a victim in this, that at one point she'll be taken in again, and Tucker will say the one thing that finally gets her to admit to her part in what happened.

**_You love it, don't you? Finally being in control for once...finally being able to do whatever you want, to not just be the voice of reason, the level-headed one, the one who only snaps when no one is there to help you. You can finally take it out on a raping, murdering psycho, and no one is gonna care._ **

"I care," she whispered to herself again, taking in a deep breath to try to rid herself of that voice in the back of her mind, the one that sounded more and more like her own instead of Dean Winchester's, "I care, and I'm better than this."

\--

It's after she gets back to work, on a day that stretches out with a case of an abandoned child that becomes a case with abused and kidnapped girls, that Olivia does her best to not call up the FBI and just confess to allowing Dean Winchester to leave, to doing all those things to Lewis. She instead looks at the card left behind by Agent Moscone, and after a long moment, dials the number. Cragen taking her off the case is not helping her feeling of helplessness, the returning dark muttering in the back of her mind that wonders if they'll pay her well for shooting the man in the back of the head like the dog he is when--

" _Hello?_ " the deep voice answers after a few rings, and she lets out a sigh, like some weight has been pulled off her shoulder, like the darkness is being pushed back and disappearing just from hearing the voice. It's odd to think about, and Olivia doesn't want to dwell on how she feels safe just hearing a voice, or seeing Barba outside of the car window when she's inside with the young boy, hiding from reporters and the house that is full of triggers.

"Agent Moscone, I'm sorry to have called so late. This is Olivia Benson."

" _Detective Benson. Are you alright?"_

_No, I'm horrible, I tortured Lewis and some part of me enjoyed every minute of it, I screamed at a woman who'd been brutalized for her whole life and demanded answers I wasn't going to get, I'm off another case because I can't keep myself together and all I want is to maim the psychopath who did this..._

_"I take it not as much."_

"I'm sorry to have bothered you. I doubt anything I have to say will help you in...in your case." _I let them go, I wasn't strong enough to fight either of them, I'm sorry._

Silence followed before he said, " _Perhaps not, but I have long ago learned that some people are better to speak to than others. I apparently am one of those people._ " What sounded like amusement colored his voice as he added in, " _I'm sure your ADA Barba is also a good person to speak to._ "

"He's blunt," she protests weakly, "and he's not very good at telling you something you want to hear."

" _That makes a good person to talk to at times like these. They won't tell you it will be better when it won't be. He'll be sarcastic and worried, but he won't lie to you about what will happen legally. And you can speak to him about what has worried you, and he'll know more than I will. I'm sure sometimes, explaining things can be hard._ " He paused again, and she heard someone in the background saying something. " _I'm afraid I must leave. I have a lead on my case. But Detective Benson, please believe me when I say no matter what you are feeling, such things are normal. And I know many people who might not want to return to such a job as you have. That you chose to do so and help people, that you understand the dangers of the job and still go forward, with a strong team behind you, is admirable. No one can take that from you, except from yourself. If you need, speak to Barba. He will help you out._ "

She smiles at the thought, happy to hear it, though her mind wonders what Cassidey will say, her turning to Barba instead of him for help. "I'll keep that in mind. Thank you."

He hangs up and she takes in a breath, thinking before letting it out, her mind set. She could do this. She could figure this out, and figure out how to reach someone like 'Mama' who hadn't gone by her real name or been treated kindly in so long. She could, because she knew what the hell she was doing, and taking her off the case like this wasn't going to help.

_I'm going to show that I can do this, and that Cragen needs to stop just throwing me off cases when it becomes too bad. Give me a day to cool off, to get my head back, and I can figure this out._

**_And then what? Shoot someone in the face? Prove Tucker right about you, about how much you want to just kill all of the ones who hide and are really monsters._** The taunt from the back of her mind was met with Olivia ignoring it for a brief moment, then shaking her head as she made her plan - she could talk to Sonny's real mother first, then she'd have enough.

_No. Then we bring him to justice for what he's done. There's no justice in shooting him when instead, I can convince a jury that he's a monster to be locked away for the rest of his life._

_\--_

"Hey, pretty, give me a smile," someone says to her, and when he grabs her, Olivia has him on the ground, with a bloody nose, before she registers him as a non-threat. The whole thing shakes her enough that she mentions it to her therapist, but doesn't mention the serial rapist. That and hearing the woman's stories haven't gotten her worked up as much as the man grabbing her and demanding a smile.

_"Smile, Liv," Dean said, leaning over her, his chest bare and muscular and spotted with blood over the fire-engulfed star tattoo on his chest, his grin feral and his eyes black, "let's see that pretty smile you give when you're finally satisfied."_

Olivia pulled in a breath, feeling her body attempt to fold in on itself, make her smaller, to hide from the memories and the feel and--

She fumbles with her phone as she begins to shake, her mind not helping as it started to turn to that dark sensations, to what happened, and she _wasn't that person, I'm not that person, I'm--_

"Detective Olivia Benson?" the sound of her name and rank makes her jump, nearly dropping her phone in an attempt to make her call, spinning to see the tall, bald black man with a goatee, standing a safe distance from her, his hand raised in a pacifying way, "You're Detective Benson, correct?"

"I...yes, who...who are you?" she demands, suddenly angry at anyone seeing her start to freak out.

He moves slowly and, using his other hand, pulls out a black wallet with the FBI ID that reads "Victor Hendriksen" on it. "I'm Agent Hendriksen. I was only recently told about your imprisonment by Dean Winchester."

The name and reasoning makes her pause, confused, before asking, "Isn't Agent Moscone on that case?"

That answers makes Hendriksen freeze, looking at her carefully as he put his ID back. "Let me guess...tall, dark hair, trenchcoat? He said there might be others coming after you?"

She swallows, nodding as he lets out quiet, "Shit...damned bastard, how is he staying ahead of us?"

Olivia puts her phone away, the number she was starting to dial disappearing as she says, "I'm off duty right now, and I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. Can this wait, Agent Hendriksen?"

He glared at her, upset, but finally growls out, "Fine, this can wait until tomorrow. I need to talk to you and your team about this, and especially to anyone else who spoke to 'Moscone'."

She wants to call and warn Barba, or Moscone, but if he's getting into places and getting information on Winchester to...what, help him? Track him down?...then she has to do what this new agent, possibly the real one, is saying. Not to mention she has to wonder if the fake FBI agent hasn't or wouldn't use that call she made, back when she first got back into working and Cragen had thrown her off a case when her emotions were still too raw, against her.

Olivia finally nods before heading back home, her anger at herself for being so fooled by a fake agent, at not realizing the danger, covering up her panic and terror that had nearly frozen her before Hendriksen arrived. She knows she has enough time to go and speak about it to her therapist tomorrow before she comes in to deal with Hendriksen, and can only hope that tonight doesn't involve nightmares.

\--

Hendriksen is nice enough to stop by after they got the useless sketch and before a new victim is found. He keeps her, Barba, and Cragen behind to talk to while glancing briefly at the wall before saying to check for convicts from Detriot and certain smells that the victims might have forgotten to mention. It's not the same condescending way that some other FBI agents have taken, but Munch still glares at him like he just told him that any conspiracy he believed for years was actually false and the Mythbusters had proven them all wrong just last week in a rather spectacular and explosive fashion. Fin and Rollins head out with Amaro instead, Munch staying in so he 'doesn't tempt fate' with his retirement pending. Olivia thinks this is more so he can keep an eye on the agent and be there to offer Olivia his own brand of comfort.

Hendriksen moves into Cragen's office easily but doesn't try to dominate the area like Tucker does, holding the folder he brought before saying, "I'm sorry it took so long to stop by, but that IAB agent who's on this case is a bit of a hardass and doesn't like giving up any of his precious work." He glanced at Olivia, then Barba, and back to Cragen before saying, "I do want to fill you in on the man who was impersonating a FBI agent, as well as your attacker." He put down the file, pulling out a photo of Moscone, who was looking up at the camera or photographer, as if examining them. "This man is Emmanuel Novak, and he's been having some mental issues for a while, according to his family. About ten years ago, he cut off all ties to his family and began to call himself Castiel."

"How very...angelic...of him," Barba said, getting Hendriksen to snort. "I say something?"

"He believes he's an angel. The few times I spoke to him, he said he was an 'angel of the Lord' here to 'protect the Righteous from being thrown into Hell'." The phrasing seems to upset Barba as he passes the photo to Olivia, who looks over the man that had fooled them both. He looks...normal, save for the eyes. It's almost like she can _see_ the blue through them, and she remembers how bright they were, just staring at her, like he was glancing inside of her head to make sure she wasn't slipping back into the nightmares he'd woken her from. She finally hands the photo to Cragen as Hendriksen seems to come to the part he looks like he's dreading.

"What?" she asked, confused before he finally pulled out another photo, carefully holding it up for her to see.

It's Dean, the man who attacked her, only...it's not. It's so odd to say that, like she's looking at the good twin of the one who had tormented her in a way that Lewis had only attempted to, even though some of her memories of what he did were as haunting as what happened after Dean came in. But the photo is...it makes no sense, and some of that must have shown on her face, as Hendriksen puts the photo down and says, "This was from about six years ago, when Dean got put into a county jail after a breaking-and-entering charge. It was a bullshit charge - he obviously wanted into that jail for _some_ reason, and somehow got out before we could figure out what that was." Hendriksen looked annoyed, and Olivia briefly wondered how long he'd been on this particular case before he opened up the file again, moved some papers, and pulled out another photo. "This is from a few days before your attack," he warned Olivia, "at this time, Dean was wanted for aggravated assault, among other things. The person attacked him first, but..." he shook his head, "I'm not sure what happened, but somehow, very abruptly, Dean's _changed_ his habits. He's become far more violent, harder to track, and he's not covering his tracks like he did before."

Barba looks upset at this news, Olivia's own mind racing and going into police-mode as she tries to figure out what might have made someone change so suddenly, what set him off to turn him into the type of man who...

She barely glances at the sight of the Dean she'd known, standing over a downed and bloodied man, before Olivia has to look away, reminding herself that breaking down will only get Cragen to take her off cases again, will only mean that Dean _won_ and she's not letting him do that to her. He and Lewis _haven't_ won. She's stronger than them both, and would come out of this sane and whole, without the same alcoholism that her mother had, without nightmares, without attacking people on the street.

**_Not that the bastard from last night didn't have it coming._ **

Barba moves closer, looking concerned, and she's happy for his presence as Cragen hands the photos back to Hendriksen, who stashes them out of sight before continuing, "Novak fell hard into his delusions after meeting Dean Winchester. From what we can track about them, he's fiercely protective of Winchester, but something happened that separated the two. We're not sure what, only that the eventual aftermath was Dean becoming the man who attacked Detective Benson and William Lewis."

She's silent, focusing on taking breaths as she thought about the news. Something had happened to make Dean attack her, do...everything he had and--

_"What are you crying about?" Dean taunted Lewis as tears and snot ran into the gag he still had on, his fingers digging into a pressure point that had an opened, bleeding wound. "I told you, this is your preview of downstairs. Your ultimate destination awaits you, Willy. No one's gonna ignore you there. No one's gonna put up with your bullshit either." He motioned, and Olivia felt her body move forward jerkily, the butcher knife from the kitchen in her hand feeling light as she lifted it._

_"Guys like us gotta watch out for each other," Dean was saying, sitting next to her, his chest bare, her body still singing from pleasure and shame, "you don't want what they plan for ones like us. I ain't letting them send another one into Hell. Better off to taint you enough that someone else can take it up." He leaned in to give her a kiss as black smoke rolled out of her mouth and back into his, a new type of sensation she almost hated to lose as she came back to herself and..._

Olivia took in a breath, knowing Cragen was trying to move closer to check on her. She pulled herself together, Barba's concern but silent help letting her pull herself out of the memory, "You said that Mos--that Novak believed he was saving the Righteous from Hell? Something like that?"

Hendriksen is quiet, then says as she looks over at him, "Yes. Novak believes some obscure belief about righteous people staving off the Apocalypse. I think he believed that Dean was one of them, though--."

Barba speaks up briefly, saying, "He said something like that about Benson." That gets her to look at him, Barba shrugging before saying, "He and I had a very...odd...talk. I thought he was a very religious agent."

Something about that rings false, the way Barba is not looking at her, glancing at Hendriksen instead as he adds, "Is there any validity to him saying that Detective Benson or any others here might be in trouble from others like Winchester?"

Hendriksen is silent for too long, allowing Olivia to recover enough to turn to him as he lets out a sigh. "Currently, Winchester is in more danger from the group than you. I believe Novak was simply attempting to scare you into believing that the priority wasn't Winchester." Cragen frowns himself as Hendriksen adds, "The group itself doesn't make a habit of going after what they perceive as the 'victims' unless they believe they are a threat, and from what I know of the group, they aren't about to come after you."

Olivia isn't sure why, but she both believes him about Dean being the bigger danger, and thinks he's underestimating the men that once worked with Dean, even if this was before he was the thing that held her for two days.

\--

The iridescent shine sometimes starts to turn back into a dark oil spot, and all Barba wants is to keep Olivia safe and banish the oil completely from the aura he sees in her. He's not sure how the other man, Emmanuel or Castiel or whatever his name was, managed to do what he did, but Barba suspects he'll be able to do something similar if the situation calls for it and there are no witnesses to see it.

It's weird to see her again, the times when she's focused allowing her soul to shine, even as the dark spot started to appear as stresses comes up over little things that cause her to shrink back, or for her temper to flare as suddenly as the spots grow larger on her soul. By the end of the last case they had, something's changed, and he has to reign himself in from staring at Olivia when she shows that a day away from simply focusing so much on a case can clear her head and bring her into the game, better and more focused than ever. Her soul is, oddly enough, even brighter than before, the iridescent now reflecting off of the colors and the few blemishes barely noticeable behind the light that reflects and refracts within her.

It's weird, like facing that rejection but finding a solution to it only made her a bit brighter, crystallizing her strong points and started hardening it to a beautiful jewel or precious stone that has somehow captured light right after it's refracted off a prism.

And since these are his thoughts, no one else was allowed to know that he described Olivia, or at least her soul, as a 'jewel' because Barba is not sappy or prone to saying things like that out loud to the women he cared about. That had been one of the reasons he'd lost Yelina to Alex - not that he'd minded, truth be told he thought they were a better fix - and he enjoys his work and knows she'd enjoy campaigning over staying at home or anything else.

The next case seems to bring out darkness again - a case of a rapist that bleeds into a case of a racist celebrity chef that has everyone on edge. He hates the second case, as that ends up being up to personal belief over the evidence. The woman could and probably would continue to spin it as she was afraid due to the reports of a rapist in the area, and the general description being so vague couldn't help him either. The actual rapist is someone that says something to Olivia which has his lawyer attempt to claim the cops beat him, but faced with evidence and the oil being found on him, not to mention three good IDs from the women, and it's a quick case.

But the issue with Jolene Castille sets his teeth on edge, and it obviously upsets Benson as well. Tutola and Warner are twin storms of annoyance and anger, the family is a massive cloud of sadness and emotions that dull their obviously-bright auras. Barba has to not only take up the scientific points of the case, but also the emotional ones, even on the face of the racist and defensive way that Castille and her lawyer are doubling-down. He almost wishes she'd taken the plea deal - her reputation is currently ruined by this, and it's just as obvious that this isn't about to go away simply because the jury said she wasn't guilty.

It's after the case, after he's had to deliver the news of the split jury to the family who only calls for peace if there are protests, and Benson reaches out to touch his arm, comforting him after the loss, that he goes back to his office to read over things and figure it out. She has Cassidey to go back home to, and as much as the man grates on Barba's nerves to the point that he wants to tell Benson to come home with _him_ and...

_And what, Rafi? You'll wrap her in your wings and make everything better? Right._

He doesn't expect the phone to ring, and the unfamiliar number has him frowning before he answers, "Barba."

" _You should calm down._ " The familiar, gravely voice nearly gets Barba to hang up, instead his hand hovering over the 'record' button he had put in, just in case there were threats, and he looks over, noticing his assistant was gone for the day. _Damn._

"That's a bit hard, when you lose a case and when a wanted man decides to call you," Barba said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice, "Though I suppose someone like you don't understand that, do you Novak?"

Silence before he feels a shift in the air, one that gets him to look up so quickly and start back as Novak himself appears in his room, the massive wings that Barba barely caught the last time now flair behind him, out like a bird of prey that had just landed and was steadying itself. In Novak's hand was the phone he'd obviously called from, and he pressed the button, ending the call, as his wings slowly fell back, going into a more sedate and calm as he walks forward, taking the phone out of Barba's hand and putting it down in it's cradle again.

"We need to talk."

"The _hell_ we do," Barba growled out, attempting to push back and get himself out of the way before he saw Novak glare, his wings suddenly flaring out and getting some part of Barba to want to back down. He pushed that feeling down as much as he could while still standing, disliking the small height difference and how, despite his messy, unprofessional appearance, the other man seemed to dominate Barba's space. "You're a wanted fugitive and you're trying to keep that _psychopath_ safe."

Novak's wings flair even more, puffing out to make him even _larger_ , and the air charges with a sort of stormy static, building between them and making Barba flinch before everything suddenly calms. The whiplash nearly makes Barba fall over as Novak moves his wings back into the sedate position, though they're still larger than before, and he tells Barba, "Apologies, but I do not take kindly to such things being said about Dean, no matter what the Mark's influence has caused him to do."

Barba frowns at him, his mind racing as he remembers the odd visions he'd seen, the information still something that often rattled in his mind or woke him from sleep coming back as Novak continued, apparently oblivious to Barba's unease. "I am not sure what Victor Hendriksen said about me, and wished to make sure you, at least, knew the truth. I suppose you are owed that much."

"Why me?"

"You know why."

Barba glared, feeling his mouth thin into a tight line at the mention of his parentage and the problems it brought. Novak is silent, and some part of Barba wants to demand if Novak knew the one who'd possessed Barba's father so he could have that one-night stand and produce Rafael. If he'd gotten a kick out of knowing Barba would be named after an Archangel of all things and wasn't just laughing his ass off at Barba's attempts to be normal. He doubts he'll get a real answer, and finally motions abruptly to the chair, moving to take a seat in his own as he said, "Fine, what 'truth' do I need to know, besides what you told me already?" It counted as 'telling' if you got an info-dump into your brain, right?

Novak looks at the chair but doesn't sit, instead standing where he'd been since he stopped Barba from hitting the record on his phone, and says, "Dean Winchester has...not always been the man that attacked Detective Benson or...the other man," he looked angry at the mention of Lewis, which Barba suspected was due to having learned of what Lewis had done before going after Olivia. Barba had run into men like Lewis before, those who's souls were a dark, sickly color, and he'd taken great pride in putting them away. But Lewis had managed to hide it and escape, and the thought of it and what happened afterwards always sent a shiver of guilt down Barba's spine.

_I could've gotten the bastard, but..._

"There was nothing you could have done to keep Lewis from Detective Benson," Novak told him, getting Barba to glare at the man as he added, "and for all that you may see Dean as simply the one who came in to torment Detective Benson, please understand that what I said before is true. Dean is under the influence of a powerful force, one which has warped his perceptions after a very bad revelation." Novak looked both upset and hurt. "I am working to fix it, but in the meantime, the threat still remains."

"And that's not more information, just a repeat of what you told me before," Barba said as he tried to figure out Novak's reasoning for coming here and talking to him. What did the man have to gain from possibly getting Barba investigated for having a known fugitive in his office?

Novak is quiet, tilting his head at Barba in a way that seemed to be like an animal attempting to figure out something they found interesting, or odd. He finally stated, "I see. You understand, then, how dangerous it may be for John Winchester to get hold of Detective Benson, then."

Barba frowned, glaring at Novak. "I thought _Dean_ was the one to worry about. Who, exactly, is John Winchester?"

"Dean's father, and the source of all these issues," Novak all but growled out, the air suddenly static-filled again and Barba having to push through his desire to lower his head or make himself smaller. "Before, when he was simply obsessed with destroying the thing that killed his wife, and dressed himself up as a man also working to save others from pain, he was not as much of a threat. After...events...he has fallen from where he should have been, if he was ever there to begin with." Barba thought back to the term he'd seen, written in a language he barely understood yet _knew_. Knowing that Dean Winchester had a similar soul to Olivia's, but that something had happened to it and that resulted in him becoming the monster he was, only added in the additional question of what type of father created that monster?

_The type you see all the time. The ones who leave their children alone, who beat them down mentally, physically, emotionally, and any other way they can. If he's focused on himself and revenge, what's to say he doesn't, or didn't, single out Dean for that abuse?_

"Are you here reporting that John Winchester was abusive to a point where Dean became a serial killer, rapist, and torturer?"

He felt that static again, and barely managed to hide his shaking hands before Castiel said, "No. I am saying that John Winchester was abusive and encouraged his son to take a self-destructive path that lead to this. Now, he seeks to hide his mistakes by killing Dean, and anything else he believes will bring his past actions into question. That will include Olivia Benson, if he realizes she is similar to Dean, and will include you and many others here, simply because of what you are."

Barba is quiet at the revelation, his mind wandering to figure out if he could look up John Winchester and cover it up with 'well, you _said_ that the other Winchesters weren't dangerous, but how can you be _sure?'_ if Hendriksen decided to question him about it. Some part of him wanted to demand Novak take him to where Winchester was hiding, or give up his location, but he doubts that will happen. Whatever Hendriksen or the others might believe, Novak was lost and Castiel was probably the only one in there, the only thing that inhabited that body. The thought was sobering and made Barba upset, sad for the family that had lost their brother to the thing now inhabiting his body. While Barba was grateful that he'd managed to do something with the spot in Olivia, even as it came back at times of high stress or trauma, he couldn't forget that Castiel was an accomplice to Winchester and, thus, as guilty for possibly an array of crimes.

"I know what type of danger I have because of what I am," Barba managed to growl out, "but I'm not going to put anyone else into a Hunter's path because of it."

Castiel looked upset about something, or at least like he was sad, but Barba ignored it. He didn't need Castiel's pity, and he lived this long without getting noticed. He could stay hidden and keep himself hidden if needed. It wasn't like a lot of people knew about the supernatural, and the few he'd met who knew didn't instantly go for 'how can we kill something and harvest it's organs for spells?' like some Hunters were known to do. The memory from a few years ago, of a series of brutal beheadings of kidnapped women by a man who said they were vampires, or had become vampires and needed to be killed, still haunted him. When he'd seen the evidence of the man having pulled out their teeth and used them to create a fetish or necklace or something, it had only reminded Barba of the descriptions he'd found in that old book, describing how to harvest the parts and what they could be used for.

It had been his first experience with a Hunter, and though the man was young, Barba had thrown the book at Gordon Walker as hard as he could, and made the charges stick. He didn't know if Walker was still in the federal prison, but he had to hope he was and no one had tried to break him out or defend his horrible actions. That Barba had managed to keep himself from being noticed by anyone who was attempting to save Walker was also counted as a win in his mind.

But with this new threat...some part of Barba was ready to be a complete asshole to the team if it meant that all the Hunter's attention was on him instead of Olivia or anyone else.

Castiel's voice reminds Barba that he isn't alone, and it shakes him out of his memories as he looks back up at the taller man, staring at him with concerned, deep blue eyes. "I am not insinuating that you don't. However, the fact remains that I would not like to hear of it, and the others would be upset if you were hurt in any way, even if they don't know the full truth."

Barba is quiet at that, considering, before saying, "They don't need to know the truth. They aren't going to be hurt. I am not going to let them get into that type of danger, ever."

Silence, and then the sound of massive wings flexing before Castiel pauses and speaks again. "I wish you luck in that challenge, Rafael Barba. I hope you have better luck in it than I ever did."

Before he could ask, the wings make a massive noise, and Barba barely sees him leave as he watches before he's once more alone, with his thoughts and the added thing that Castiel said to him, as well as his own anger at his actions. What was his feeling to _submit_ during that posturing? This was _his place_ , not his home but his work-place, and he wasn't about to let some _convict_ tell him or _intimidate_ him into anything.

_"I hope you have better luck in it than I ever did..."_

Did that mean that once, Emmanuel Novak had been like Rafael Barba? That he'd once had a life, a family or friends or _something_ , before he...what, lost himself to whatever power they inherited? Gave up the human side for the inhuman one? Was he warning Barba that this would happen at one point, that he'd be overwhelmed and leave the others, become something else? He shudders at the thought, swallowing and glancing back at the work he has left to finish, even as a sour taste builds in his mouth. He isn't going to let that happen. He _won't_. No matter what the others say, or what the others attempt, he was himself and he wasn't about to fail like Emmanuel Novak did, and he certainly wasn't about to become a new...thing...out of it either.

\--

Dean slowly stood and stretched out, tapping on the bloodied night stand to see if the clock was still working and the time was right. _Damn, I had far too much fun, didn't I?_

He finally realizes what got him up is the trilling sound from nearby, playing some hymn or 'Leaning on Jesus' thing that makes him wrinkle his nose in disgust, more out of the choice of song than any pain. Like that sort of thing would create any pain in him. Dean finds the phone easily, the number blocked, and moves over to the middle of the RV, slapping the man hanging from the ruined top. "Wake up, numb nuts. You got a call."

Dean pulls off the gag as the man, older and with short, blond hair cut even shorter than when they started all the fun. However, Kubrick wasn't fun anymore. His RV was nice, but not as nice as the Impala, and while the thought of trying out some things on Kubrick floated in his mind, it wasn't something he wanted to do. Apparently the few days of fun with Olivia and Lewis had spoiled him to anything else.

The phone was opened and on speaker, Kubrick managing to mutter out what sounded like a sleepy 'hello?' before Dean held up a finger, quieting him like a well-trained dog, as the voice on the other end growled out, " _Don't you 'hello' me, you Jesus-freak. You were supposed to check in two days ago._ "

Dean knew that voice, and the anger he heard only made Dean feel the sudden need to do something painful to Kubrick, and keep the speaker phone on. He doubted the burner phone for the man on the other end was going to allow for any fun videos he might add in.

" _I don't need you to make some stupid-ass excuses either, Kubrick. You need to get here._ "

"...I..." Kubrick started to talk, apparently thinking Dean was too caught up by the voice or who it belonged to, "...he got...the demon...he got--."

Dean hit him hard, knowing the sound carried over the phone, and clicked his tongue like he was chiding a kid or something. "Now you went and screwed up the surprise. Not that it was much of one, but I'm getting so damned _tired_ of that." He listens to the silence on the other end of the line. "What's wrong? Nothing to add in to that? No threats, no demands I let the Jesus-freak go?" He snorted and glanced over at his handiwork of the past week and a day, the few since he got out of New York state and ran into Kubrick on a happy accident. He had kept a low profile in the hopes of avoiding the usual first and second wave of people who wanted to ruin his fun - Cas was hard to trap and harder still to _keep_ trapped, and he wasn't about to kill Victor, not when seeing him run around like an idiot was so much _fun_.

Hunters, though? Hunters were _always_ allowed. So were other demons who were stupid enough to get in his way, or monsters that decided having some _thing_ in their territory wasn't _allowed_. Kubrick wasn't the first since Olivia, but he was the longest, and all he did was make Dean _ache_ for that woman again. At least she was defiant and put up a brave front. Damn but Dean wished he'd gotten to her first, before Lewis had went and screwed with her in such a haphazard manner, in a way that didn't leave any _fun_ to really be had. It's what you get for dealing with amateurs who thought they were hot shit in a champagne glass.

"You're being so quiet for a man who had so much to bitch about before," Dean said, moving to pick up one of the larger Bowie knives on the small table nearby, the blood from before now dried on it. Victor was gonna have _fun_ when he found this one, and probably freak out enough to tell Olivia. Maybe he should leave her a message?

Nah, that's stupid. She wouldn't take a message from him after she though he'd been hurting her and not helping. He needed to get her back first and explain, not leave out some dead body for her to hear about that wasn't even in her district. That was just ameturish and not even a _bit_ romantic.

_I need someone she'll want to help me take down...I should probably go after that asshole cousin or whatever of mine. The one who likes to 'take in' monster-kids and 'deals with' them right when they're a certain age._

"Seriously, I got more chatter out of you back when we were traveling together. I'm sure you remember those days, don't you? The good old days, back on the road...the _family business_... _saving people, hunting_ things." He nearly snarled out that last one, stopping to rest the knife lightly against Kubrick's shoulder, where a host of other scars and cuts and burns already were. He was getting to where killing the asshole and leaving was on his list, right after 'go get my car from the parking lot' and 'send Victor all the videos so he and his group can lose their lunches'. It's the little things, really.

He knows that getting Kubrick to scream won't get a response. He was there and saw, first hand, how things were handled when 'friends' were being used as bait or killed to get a rise out of the man. It would've saved those other demons a lot of trouble if they'd not tried to go after friends and instead went after the item.

" _You really think I'll fall for that tactic?_ "

Dean manages a small smile at the sound of the voice again over the phone. "So a cat _doesn't_ have your tongue. Good, I thought you were just saving it for bitching out fellow Hunters that don't stick to your schedule."

" _How much has Kubrick told you?_ "

Kubrick attempts to speak but the knife against his throat stops him as a new line of blood runs down his bare torso. "What makes you think I wanted _information_? And like you found any new places to hide from what's going on. You never give up a good drop place if you can just fortify it and then leave it alone." He'd found enough of those areas and raided them for fun and because he could. "I don't need to know your big plan. I don't need to deal with your bullshit, and I didn't have to let Kubrick here answer his phone. It being you was just a bonus." The knife slowly went in deeper as Kubrick attempted to breath or scream, finally attempting to thrash as blood began to spray. Dean didn't even blink.

" _You're lying. You want to know because you know it will mean that I get hold of that_ monster _that took so much pleasure in raping you. It means that I might be closer to a way to capture you and_ keep _you from going back out and hurting anyone. And most importantly, you want to know because you want to find Sam._ "

Dean kept cutting, the spray and spill of blood making Kubrick choke on his own screams and gurgle as the cut lay deep enough to show his spine, the knife now stuck in his throat as the convulsions slowed to a stop. The phone was coated in blood, red drops pooled on the top of the screen, and Dean let out a breath, not even a huff.

"You're a one-trick pony, John, and I'm tired of it. I don't care if you find Cas, because you're not gonna do anything to him. I doubt you could catch me even if you tried. And as for _Sammy_ ," he snorted, "that's _your_ hang up. Go find him yourself and do whatever you think is needed. I know you'll figure out a way to put your own son down. Worked out _so well_ the last time, didn't it?"

Dean dropped the phone into the soaked carpet. It'd probably short out with the wetness, but he wasn't going to give John the pleasure of being hung up on. And he could call up Victor from another phone anyway.

_You're a relentless bastard, aren't you, John?_ Dean thought as he willed himself away, and even managed to clean himself off. What could he say, there were perks of remembering how Cas had cleaned them off when things got messy during a Hunt and they needed to keep a low profile. It also helped keep his laundry bills down.

He walked over to the Impala and opened the door, sliding in and not bothering to push away the trash on the side. Dean hadn't kept her interior in the best of shape, but he didn't feel the need at the moment, since her engine was running well and John would be looking for an Impala that was up to _his_ standards, not just one that allowed it to be driven or half-recognized as what it was. He could always clean her up in a week or two. For now, he had an anonymous tip to make to Victor Hendriksen, and a cousin to track down.

 


	3. Nasty Surprises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Munch retires, and Barba has to deal with issues from his past as he tries to figure out more about himself. Also, Hendriksen makes another discovery, one that could badly impact the SVU team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live! Getting poor Barba through 'October Surprise' was hard...

John Munch will readily admit that the only reason he's so ready to retire is because of what happened with Olivia. He didn't want to tell her about the added bits and pieces that one of his exes told him about the things that went bump in the night. He really doesn’t want to mention that this is the one ex that he never married, or one that he, sadly, had no idea where she was. He can only guess she’s either dead or isn’t about to show her face to him, for fear that she might actually have warrants out for her arrest, but the little she told him, _showed him_ , stuck.

In reality, thinking ( _KNOWING_ ) that JFK was an inside hit is easier than knowing what she does, or did, and he doesn't blame her for taking the medications, or denying it when asked what her mother did for a living. He makes as many jokes as he can, ranging from the actually funny to the morbid, and blames his leaving on the recent case they lost instead of the fact that his mind is starting to connect signs he doesn't want connected for Olivia's still-open case. Ones that he knows Fin sees too, but also will never comments on. Fin was always better at hiding his ease at the thought of angry ghosts, vampires, and knowing how best to desecrate a grave, but he also was never forthcoming about if he learned it from his time undercover or at some other time, before he was married. Fin can ignore the signs where Munch cannot, not after a while, and it pains him to think about that.

Olivia’s fingerprints were on the knife and other implements that had been used to carve into Lewis, but she'd been weak and uncoordinated, as if she wasn't used to her body anymore, and he suspected her memory was both spotty but insanely clear of what happened during those last three days of her imprisonment and torture. On top of that, she had had sulfur down her throat, and it'd been present at the scene. She'd downed a lot of salt, leaving her craving water for days on end, her voice scratchy and hoarse.

**_Signs of a demon possession are sulfur, aversion to salt, a period of being unable to coordinate--_ **

Munch cut off that train of thought, instead focusing on talking to Olivia, watching as she pulls out the pendant he’d gotten her, the same style as the one she’d left behind and that now served as evidence in a trial that might not happen. “John...I...”

"Oh come on. I enjoy giving out gifts, and this should keep you safe, right?" It had better - silver was apparently very good against the supernatural. Not to mention some of the stuff apparently inside of it was also a good ward against evil things.

She shifted before smiling, shifting to put it on as John gave her a smile. "Besides, they aren't letting us take yours out from Evidence, so a new one is just as good. And now you can't give me anything for my retirement."

It was good to see her smile and laugh, to at least look like she was recovering from the past two years of suck. Munch seriously considered tracking Elliot down just to hit him upside the head for how he left, not to mention the other guys he knows Liv’s been seeking and failing to get. If he were younger, he’d sweep her up and give her what she deserves. Even if it meant having four ex wives, he’d still do it.

Munch didn't focus on that, though. He helped with a case of taking down corrupt cops that left Benson a bit distant and overly protective of Cassidey by the end. When she was called away on a case during his retirement, he allowed it due to the fact that they were on the job a lot, and at this moment, she was the highest ranking person, and the one who needed that focus the most. On the job, she was better. Away from it, it became obvious how little she trusted herself, how quickly she lost herself in trying to finish a case she started.

She was a better choice than he for leading the team. Even with the issues she and Amaro could have, she was always the better fit.

—

“You’re not going to like this,” is the first thing that Barba hears when he arrives into the office for the day, nearly starting when he sees Castiel there, standing with a woman with long, dark hair and serious, huge blue eyes. She’s wearing a well-fit gray pantsuit, and  breaths in quickly when she sees Barba, who nearly starts when he sees them, instead leveling a glare at them. He hates being surprised and he hates

“I doubt you would bring good news. And who is that?”

“This is Hannah,” Castiel says, not adding anything else as the woman smiles at him, looking like she’s about to run up and hug him. He levels a glare at her as well before he notices the wings - not as dark as Castiel’s, but they’re there, and just a reminder of all the weirdness that has resulting in Barba not being able to keep his powers in focus. He can’t even blame Olivia for it - she’s gone through too much for him to ever think of that - and some part of him wonders if he can get fingerprints and figure out Hannah’s true name, remind her of her life so she can return. If that can work for her, maybe if Barba ever turns into something like them, he can—

“It’s a pleasure,” Hannah said with a warm smile that he’s not certain about, “When Castiel told me about you...I...” She glanced at Castiel as he shifted to move a wing near hers, and she paused before taking in a breath, nodding. Barba wished he knew whatever they were communicating silently before Castiel spoke up again, looking back at him.

“Gordon Walker is attempting to escape prison. It’s likely he will succeed, with the help he has acquired.”

Barba feels himself freeze at that, not wanting to think about Walker or what he’d done in the name of ‘saving’ people. He was supposed to be in a maximum security prison for life. “How do you know about that?”

“There are Hunters who are sympathetic to our cause and to what we are, who view us and some others as beings that simply need a place to stay and ways to protect ourselves, without hurting anyone,” Hannah said, looking dangerously close to zealous in her talk, “They told us about the rumors.”

“Rumors,” Barba huffed, not wanting to be condescending but not about to trust himself to not yell at the two for being her and invading his privacy, for making his life that much harder, or reminding him of what his fate might be. The added hope that the news was just a rumor, instead of fact, also made him irritable. “I’m not about to believe any of these ‘rumors’.”

“Rumors in hunting communities are often considered fact until proved otherwise,” Castiel explained to him, though he looked concerned, “and we’re not sure when this will take place. The rumor itself is old, and...events have escalated attempts to break out Walker and others from their prisons.”

Barba raised his eyebrows, obviously annoyed with the whole thing, as Castiel watched and waited, Hannah still looking like she wanted to...hug him? That made no damned sense, and he certainly wasn’t letting her near him.

Barba finally said, “If you know about this, you should warn someone who has a way to stop him.”

“We have,” Castiel said, matter-of-factly, “but we do not know how it is that Walker will escape. The man aiding him is...quiet...about his plans. It is also believed this is a larger ploy, to try to gain access to someone else. However, we have been wrong about the moves before.”

Barba glared at him, seeing Hannah’s obvious dislike for his attitude. “So where do I come in? I prosecuted the man and sent him to jail for what he did. Why tell me?”

Hannah’s wings rustle uncomfortably as Castiel answers. “The man who is recruiting and freeing Walker is Dean Winchester’s father. We believe he is trying to gain men so he might be able to...” he stops, looking at Hannah’s obvious fear and upset, then back to Barba before saying, “He will target you and Benson. Benson especially, but that will only put you in more danger.”

“Why, because I’m half angel? A freak like the ones that Walker said he was killing?” Hannah looks upset at his words, but he’s not paying as much attention to her as to Castiel, who seems upset by the choice, but also like he knows that Barba knows the real reason. It hits him as suddenly as most of her revelations have hit him in his life, and he can only curse himself for being so stupid.

“I put him away, and I’m connected to the team...and I’m not a cop.” That meant no gun, no protection, only his wits, his mouth, and...

Using that power was dangerous, and even if he just used them to defend himself, he knew it would mean they not only use that against him, but they might see him as not just a way to get Benson, but also as something that they could use, could tear apart for pieces to sell. His mind once again flashes back to the books he found during college, the memory of the things he fought in high school. He barely sees the wing go around his shoulder, but when he feels the feathers brush his back, he starts, backing away from Castiel and the worried Hannah as he tries to think, to figure out a way to keep himself out of this whole thing. Even if he doesn’t use his powers, if he just acts like he’s normal, he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to hide or avoid them long enough to get away, or even what he might be able to do without having to kill someone.

It freaks Barba out, the thought that now, there might not be anything he can do to protect Benson or the others from further attacks. He simply has to hope he can fight them off.

“We cannot aide you much in this,” Castiel tells him, bringing Barba back to the present, “we can, however, give you this.” He holds out a small vial of some sort, a crystalline bottle with...something...liquid inside of it. Barba frowns as he slowly accepts it, seeing the odd thing that looked like smoke or blue ink in water. When he touches it, the inky substance and water seem to react, turning a more blue and whitish glow that gets him to frown as he looks over at the two. “And this is?”

“A last resort,” Castiel says as Hannah looks ready to say more, “and a very dangerous one for you or anyone else. You know that no matter what, you will be found out. With that,” he nods to the vial, “you will be able to save whoever you want, but it will mean you can’t quite hide what you are anymore.” Barba frowns at it even more as Castiel turns to Hannah, who seems to look a bit worried about the gift, her wings shifting even more as Barba moved to put the item down, seeing the water and ink turn duller without his touch, his fingers itching like they’d been giving a static shock, and it leaves a weird, battery-like taste in his mouth. He was grateful that he still had some coffee to get the taste gone, and he looked over at the two as Castiel turns back to him. He wonders if Hannah and Castiel are the same, that they began to ‘hear’ things and that resulted in them becoming full-fledged angels. Suddenly, the item they gave him, the warning, makes him want to give back the water-thing and tell them he’ll handle whatever comes up on his own. He doesn’t want to risk becoming like them, like the one who took over his father and what it did to his mother. Barba doesn’t care about how these two are acting - they created this problem for him, and he wants his focus to be on his job, on dealing with what they have to deal with, and especially on making sure that Liv is alright. He doesn’t need something that will probably leave him in the same sad state as these two.

He turns to pick up the item again, and barely manages to start saying, “Take this and go,” before he hears the flapping of wings, and he whirls, seeing the two gone. Anger has him put his hand fully around the crystal thing, letting out a low Spanish curse that he knows he’d get yelled at for even daring to think from his Ma. They’re both gone, and he’s left with some item that might or might not help him as a last resort when he knows the only thing that will change is that dangerous people will know that they can come after him for magical parts. He shoved the thing into his pocket, hoping to not deal with anything else today.

And despite the bad new he brings with him, Barba is too happy to see Alex that he doesn’t think on the meeting of the two before this, or the implications of what is really going on, until Liv comes up and asks him if he isn’t early in seeing someone accused of rape.

—

The necklace that Benson got from John on his retirement calms her in a way she hasn’t felt for a long while. It makes her feel lighter, focuses her more and allows her a bit more clarity than she’d had since the day she came to her apartment and Lewis had pointed that gun in her face.

The clarity isn’t quite there yet for this case, though. It doesn’t really start to show until she sees Barba looking in on the interrogation, sipping his coffee and looking far more worried than he normally would be for something so early that they hadn’t even contacted him about it, hadn’t even built a case yet.

“I...have...an interest,” he says, sounding like he’s not sure if he should tell her or as if some other things are worrying him. He glances at her, pleading a bit, as he asks, “Sidebar?”

They end up eating at a restaurant nearby, while he explains about his connection to Eddie Gonzales, the guy they picked up, and Alex Munoz, the top mayoral candidate, and their shared history that lead up to high school, as the three began to drift apart after he left the Bronx and Alex worked to save the old neighborhood and other areas. He only asks that they take a look again, and it’s obvious what’s added to that. Barba might have old family connections to them, but he isn’t about to allow that to get in the way of doing what is right. She likes that about him, that despite his abrasive attitude at times. It’s why she deals with the ride over with Amaro and his complaining, though he obviously sees the issue when she says that Eddie came in with his wife.

A wife who, Barba says, split three years ago, and then she wants to speak _only_ with Amaro, just so she can tell him she wants to drop the charges, that it was a misunderstanding and not, as she’d claimed ten hours ago, rape and assault. It’s enough to get them to look into her, and finding a list of men, all with money and influence, and restraining orders for harassment and extortion. It makes sense, except for the fact that Eddie, as Amaro points out, works at Rikers and is a single-father who still lives in his old neighborhood. That means that he’s not the type that she goes after...but Alex Munoz is.

Which only serves to complicate _everything._

—

Barba hates the reminder of his old friends and what he ran from. He hates the liquid-and-smoke thing he leaves locked in his office drawer with important files and five sturdy locks between it and daylight. He hates that Alex lied to his face, and to the SVU officers, and simply tried to pass off their friendship as a reason for Barba to pull his weight for Eddie when all he’d done was all Eddie ever did - what he was told to do.

What he hates especially is that Ilena doesn’t seem to care enough past asking if it was because of what happened to get Alex to start dating her. He wants badly to tell her the truth - that after what happened with the nurse, and the thing, he was ready to throw them together if it meant getting her away from Barba and his dangerous, insane, horrible power. That if Alex had known about it, Barba never would’ve made it out of there.

Of course, the DA is ready to hang Barba on this too, just as much as everyone else is. A rock and a hard place does not even BEGIN to describe where he is for this, and currently, Amaro’s colors are getting dark and cloudy. He seems to be taking self-righteous pleasure in reminding Barba that this is his friend, a friend from his old neighborhood, in trouble and whom they’re investigating. A friend that _stayed_ while Barba took a scholarship and left.

Barba’s never wanted so badly to yell at someone, _anyone,_ about what is going on. He doesn’t catch a break as he’s called in, late and after Ilena has arrived to state she’s off to a dinner with Alex and to add in the ‘he’s doing great things, don’t mess this up for him’ that he’s heard all his life. It’s worse when he sees what it is that Alex is doing.

If Ilena doesn’t have his head for this, Barba _will_. How could Alex be such an idiot? How could he simply take such a risk for whatever thrill he got out of sneaking away from an important dinner, a dinner with his family and kids, for...what? Showing off his junk to some girl online? The laughs from Finn and the others doesn’t help him out at all, but he sees that for all of them, there’s plenty of upset over it, but also annoyance. They’d had to do all this work to learn that the mayoral candidate, the one they all want to vote for and make sure things went better. He was the best choice, the one that made the most sense in some cases, but now they caught him doing _this?_

Barba knew that Alex was gonna try to deny it, but some part of him hoped that he wouldn’t. The Alex he’d known, that he’d grown up with, had more heart and soul and understanding of the consequences than this one seemed to have. It only served to make Barba want to call on some sort of help, but he wasn’t about to do that.

The meeting the next morning, in a cafe and with Alex’s aura being so messy and oily that Barba almost wants to throw some sort of power into a touch, to get Alex to stop lying and simply allow the truth before it becomes _too_ bad, before the lies becomes _too_ huge, but he stops himself as he always does. There’s a great deal of witnesses, and the thought of using his power like that on a _friend_...

“How can you believe this? It’s obviously Wall Street trying to keep me out of City Hall!” Alex pleads, sincere in his voice even as the black oil oozes through his once-bright soul. Barba had thought that Alex’s was the brightest, the best soul...then he’d had to leave, and seen Alex less and less, but still, that soul _seemed_ so bright. Compared to others that had oily spots, or hidden darkness they wouldn’t acknowledge for one reason or another, kept locked away by faith or reason or something else, Alex and Ilena had been the _brightest_ , the best.

Until he met Olivia Benson, alone from the others, and seen just how _beautiful_ a soul could really be. He’d never realized how much a part of him wanted to keep souls safe until he’d seen hers. It was why, seeing it now in a strange, even more beautiful manner it was now, he wondered if perhaps whatever Dean Winchester had tried, he’d ultimately failed at.

“Alex, you need to be honest with me, and honest with yourself,” Barba says instead of going along with his friend’s lies. He can’t take it, and he’s not gonna take Alex’s lies if it means that he’s going to use his pull - as a mayoral candidate so many love, as his old friend, as so many things - to get Barba to bury something he is no longer able to bury because Alex decided his power came with the ability to cheat on Ilena. “You came to me, to ask for help on Eddie’s behalf-”

“Because he’s my friend,” Alex interrupts, angry that things weren’t going his way, “and your friend.”

When Alex wouldn’t answer his question, Barba finally told him the truth. “It looks bad.”

Alex’s anger and the dark cloud boiled over as he demanded who it looked bad to. “To you? You’re here to judge me? You my priest? You gonna tell me how many Hail Mary’s I’m gonna say?”

It wasn’t even that, though Barba guessed he could easily judge him. “Alex, I’m going so out of a limb for you,” Barba pointed out. This wasn’t just about Alex and his chance to try for being in charge of a city, it was about everyone else. Eddie’s career, if the woman had kept to her guns, would have been over. “I could lose my job simply for speaking to you.” And then who would protect Liv? Who could possibly be able to do whatever he could to send the things coming for her away by giving them a better scent, a better prey?

He could see that Alex didn’t care, and he lied again the moment Barba asked the question he’d been dreading to ask. He also attempted to dig in about his past crush as well.

Barba didn’t rise to the bait. This wasn’t about their past, but about what it would mean, if there were more women, and especially if some of them were not of age. Who he does end up barking at is Amaro, but at this point, being accused of letting Munoz off the hook for some of the stuff he’s done, or at least that they’ve found, only leaves Barba wishing for an easy way out of this.

—

The crime scene holds another Hunter, and Victor Hendriksen silently curses as he looks over the fingerprints left. They’re unmistakably Dean’s, and the older ones, under some of the blood, belongs to John Winchester and others. That they’re closer and closer to New York only serves to worry him more.

His cell phone rings and he picks it up without thinking, his upset over being unable to trace or get a good read on Dean Winchester ruining his day as much as the news of Munoz’s sex scandal out of New York. He watches his partner, Reidy, directing as he answers, “Hendriksen.”

“ _You found my gift. I’m glad._ ”

Hendriksen freezes only briefly before making a subtle gesture that will alert Reidy, spotting his partner move to start a trace. “Winchester.”

“ _The one and only. I heard from my last friend you worked the case in New York. Tell me...how was Bensen? Crying mess? Locking doors and jumping at shadows?_ ”

“She didn’t even flinch when she saw your photo,” it was bravado, but he wanted to hope that her being only somewhat effected, or at least unaffected, but the torture that Dean Winchester visited upon her would cause the man to back off. He doubted it, but he also knew that if push came to shove, he could count on Benson to help. She’d aided the FBI before, and been able to handle anything thrown at her.

Silence on the other line, long enough that Victor was almost worried Dean had hung up. “ _Dad and his friends are gonna try to get another newbie for their band. Oh, also for you to worry about - someone might know that I think Bensen being so awesome is a bad thing. Might wanna watch out of that. You really never know who might come back from the dead just to go after her._ ”

The line went dead as Hendriksen cursed, turning to Reidy who shook his head. “We got approximate, but it was a burner phone. I’ll put in a call, hopefully they can stop whatever he’s doing there, or...find something.”

Hendriksen nodded, upset, before saying, “He did confirm something we’d been thinking, though.”

“What? About Walker?”

“That too, but we knew that.” As much as Hendriksen hated taking calls from people who were on Novak’s side, the tip had been a good one, and led to arrests instead of the gore that they’d found whenever Dean left his own tips. “No, it’s about Sam Winchester. I think he’s still alive.”

Which was close to impossible, and unlikely to be true. Hendriksen knew it, and he could see Reidy’s surprised look when he said it out loud. There was next to no way that the youngest Winchester could be alive. His body was buried next to his girlfriend, the two having died in an apartment fire years ago.

An apartment fire similar to the one that had claimed Mary Winchester’s life when Sam was a baby. One that was similar to those of others who died under mysterious circumstances over the past few years. More specifically, it had been around the same time that John and Dean Winchester started working together less and less. In fact, the only one of them near the area at the time had been Dean, but Hendriksen doubted that it’d been Dean who set the fire and killed his brother. No matter what, not until recently, had Hendriksen seen Dean give up on a person he believed he could ‘save’ or that he might be able to ensure was safe from some imagined boogey man. Not until William Lewis and Olivia Bensen had he shown that he might be the serial killer that Hendriksen believed he was.

But John Winchester and his group? They wouldn’t have any qualms about setting a fire and letting John’s youngest son burn up for some imagined slight. If Sam was alive, it worried Hendriksen. Because Sam had been used to control Dean for years by John, and his death had pushed the two away. If he was heading to Bensen, then so was John, and so would Dean.


	4. Into This Furnace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amanda Rollins finds a friend, who's named Meg Masters. The new lawyers who are going up against Barba, however, cause a bit of worry as far as him trying to figure out _what_ they are...and they are simply excited to find something so _unique_ as him.

Amanda Rollins slumps a bit in her chair, listening to the talk about the horrible thing that had happened with gambling to one of the other person’s life. She was starting to get a bit tired of the meetings, but is fine because the people here are nice.

Next to her, Meg leans over a bit to whisper, “Sounds like an episode of _The Simpsons_.”

Amanda shushed her friend, the dark-haired woman giving her a smile, her dark lipstick and hair standing out against her pale skin, and she looked back to listen up as the speaker began to wrap up his story. It’s a break from all that they’d had to do at work - not just dealing with the fallout from the whole thing with Munoz, but also the music coach and the kids who had decided to ruin him by a sex scandal recently, where no one really won after they had to examine everything and the evidence mounted, as fake as it was.

It’s not something Amanda wants to think about, and Meg’s silly comments and the like, the anonymous nature of the place to talk about what happened. She didn’t have to name names, or say what happened. All she had to do was say that it had, that her reaction had been this, and that was enough.

The group breaks, Meg muttering and going over to get them some coffee as she gives Amanda a small smile. “Bad time at work?”

“Something like that.” Amanda accepted the coffee and took a sip. “And you?”

“Same old shit, different day,” Meg said with a shrug, “and the dog and her pups are getting better. Starting to really trust me.” She smiled happily as Amanda did as well. “That trick you told me about worked out perfectly. Thanks.”

Amanda nodded. “Yeah, if I had more time I’d try to get one too, but with my work schedule and here...it’s another thing I’d be worried about.” She drinks the coffee a bit more, glancing at Meg. “I do my best, but...”

“Yeah, I getcha,” Meg said, leaning a bit and nodding. The only way Amanda can think of how to describe her is ‘dark’ - dark leather jacket, dark purple shirt, a necklace that only really shown when contrasted between her pale skin and said dark shirt, and a part of dark levis that look almost like leather over dark boots. But Meg had befriended her, and never asked more beyond how she was doing. They weren’t under the same sponsors or anything, but Meg and she seemed to just...get along. Meg was more than happy to be there, to not talk about her work or her past, and Amanda was just as happy to do the same. The few times they talked _around_ things had only seemed to show Amanda that Meg had lived a similar life to Amanda, but whatever had happened to her had taken her down a much darker road. One that required a large, half-feral dog to raise and focus on, even if that dog only followed her and no one else. Amanda could see why someone would want that, even if her sense as a police officer makes her question what, exactly, Meg would be worried about. But the rest of it is understandable if Meg is getting out of that dangerous situation, not into any others.

The meeting ends on a high note, with Meg and Amanda heading out with two other friends from the meeting to have beer and to talk a bit. It’s a ritual of sorts, to go to a place and talk instead of sitting in their rooms or doing something that might only start up the cycle again. Meg makes off-color jokes that get close to almost bad, and somehow it lightens Amanda’s spirit more than the alcohol or the other company. They all leave Meg as she goes to flirt with one of the guys at a bar, the man someone that Amanda near wants to shoot for the way he’s eyeing her. Something about it sets off all of Amanda’s worry and police-sense, but she also remembers that Meg has that big dog. If she gets worried, the dog will care for her, and Amanda can’t arrest the guy. Not without giving away and breaking that anonymous confidence they have built their friendship on. She’s not about to lose this one good thing in her life, anymore than she’d lose her job by failing to keep up and not put herself into danger.

\--

Meg smiles happily at the grabby guy she’d picked up at the bar, leaving Amanda to head off on her own with the others. He’s not a nice man, but then again, Meg knows her hound and the puppies needed the souls they normally fed on, and that was the souls of the damned and the bad people in this world.

There’s a sound from one side, which the man is too dense to realize is a bit loud for a regular, run-of-the-mill dog as she leads him towards the bedroom, pausing at the door. “Ready for some fun?”

“I’ve been ready, you tease,” he says, starting to come after her just as she opens the door.

The puppies are the size of pitbulls, and still growing, and the mom is currently nearing the size of many prehistoric animal who thought mammoths were push-overs. The man’s screams are muted by the pups swarming and tearing at him, the mother stalking out to start tearing at him just as her pups do. His soul isn’t quite black, but it has traces of it, and Meg watches the mother hound devour it. When the pups are older, she might lose them in a prison, but for now, she leaves them to their meal and instead goes over to the kitchen, thinking. She’s heard through the grapevine that something big is in New York – some powerful thing killed a powerful demon a few years back, and word is that Sam Winchester and his little group of Azazel’s children were thinking of moving here as well. She’s not sure how true that is, since Azazel, in his infinite wisdom, never taught others how to track the kids. You had to go by whatever name he gave you, and he was notorious for not giving a lot to go on. Meg knew Sam because he’d been _her_ mark to follow, and that hadn’t turned out well for her or for her first host. After some big shit that went down, one that Meg only had a vague idea of what happened, now they had themselves a super-powered demon who you didn’t mess with, and a bunch of ‘special’ kids that Azazel’s death had not stopped from having power for, especially not after they ran into Sam Winchester and his girl Jess.

Then the news had come in that Sam was dead, along with all of Azazel’s ‘Special Children’, after Alistair had decided to come up and have ‘fun’. That fun had pissed off Lilith and others so much, that she knew Alistair wasn’t gonna come up anytime soon. Granted, Meg almost wants him to come up and see if he and Dean will have a fight.

The crunch of bone said that the puppies were getting through the meat and the like, and she pulled out one of the larger whiskey bottles out before taking a swig. A light bump got her to look over, seeing the mother hellhound nearby, luckily no blood on her muzzle or on Meg’s clothing. For that, she got a bowl full of the whiskey and Meg started on another bottle. Next to the mother was the runt of the litter, a pup that only sometimes ate the meat off the men Meg brought home, but overall tended to eat the kibbles she had to buy to feed them in order to keep things quiet. A damned soul could feed a few hellhounds for a bit, but with the whole litter here, along with the mom who needed her own food, it made things hard to hide.

It was a good thing that this particular meatsuit was resilient, and that her time working with Clarence to try to deal with Crowley, when he was hyped on power, means she feels a bit upset over some stuff. The hellhound stuff, not so much, but lying to Amanda was one of them. Something about the woman made Meg want to bring her home and keep her safe, even if it’s locked up and tied to a chair. Granted, she doubted that would fly, and someone might come to find her, but Meg wants her to come and just…be with her. As a friend, one who is helped and cared for, not as anything else.

It’s new to Meg as far as she can remember, and she’s fine with that. For Amanda, she feels she can change a few things. Just like she changed a bit for Clarence before everything went to shit because of John Fucking Winchester.

“You’re gonna have a good meal with that one,” Meg says as she lightly pets the huge hellhound and listens to the puppies crunching open the bones of the dead man, “Yes you are, you good girl.”

\--

Amanda is upset for the next few meetings, and some part of Meg almost wants to trail her, figure out why that is. The whole thing reeks of some sort of moral despair or a reminder of something bad that’ll trigger her back to a gambler’s den, and Meg knows well enough that some of the ones that want to trap cops in them are run by humans who put most demons to shame – humans that like to prey on women and men, on their weaknesses, and to exploit it to their own advantage for as long as possible, dragging all down with them. A demon might damn one, maybe two, and she knows the younger ones enjoy the same type of mass-damnation that always showed up as tragedies and never gave her a thrill like it obviously did for those weak assholes.

Meg is old enough and smart enough to know that such tactics will only get you found out, thrown back into Hell, and having to claw your way back up with all the rest of the rabble. She knows that for all these human men and women claim to be untouchable, have all the different men and women under their thumb of authority, it’s often when the chips are down, when they are finally going to prison, that they cry like the children they are. It’s pitiful in a way she hates, that makes her despise the damned souls who act like they’re all that upstairs. At the same time, she wants to make sure Amanda is safe.

So she decides that the best way to make sure Amanda isn’t targeted again, even if she breaks and ends up back in a den, is to warn the bosses of those areas to stay away. A few scares are always worth the sight of them pissing their pants when confronted by her Hellhound. That guy who trafficked in exotic animals had not realized that hyenas were not top-tier, and neither were lazy, but sometimes aggressive, lions.

Nope, the thing that scares everyone are the full-grown Hellhounds that anyone with a half-damned soul could sense, and that anyone could see with the right spell. It was a reminder of what a demon, even one touched and half-healed by an Angel and the Righteous Man, could do on her own. Still, the experience given by Azazel and his firm-but-even hand, as well as by Alistair and his sadism, gave her even more of an edge over the normal ones she sometimes ran into from time to time. The one with a Kush knife had been a hard fight, but worth it in the end, especially since it gave her one more tool to use to protect her friend.

Meg is surprised to find that she does think of Amanda like that – a friend. Someone she can rely on, and someone who Meg will do what she can for, no matter what the cost. She’s not someone she’d tempt, not someone she wants to just have fun with, to toy with. She’s her friend…like Clarence and the others from before.

 _Who’d have thought that I’d find another unicorn?_ Meg thought, because she put Amanda in that category too. A precious, special, mythical thing – a _real_ friend – that would disappear the moment she was found out the truth behind the men Meg took home, behind her dogs, and behind what Meg was gonna do for her, just what Meg _really was_.

But Meg could pretend, for however long it lasted, and that was good enough.

\--

Amanda lets out a sigh as she sees Meg come in, two cups of coffee in her hand and a look on her face that said she didn’t like what was going on. Amanda gives her a small smile as she accepted the coffee. “You didn’t have to come with us, Meg.”

“I figure I’m a better choice than your idiot sponsor who can’t follow rules,” Meg said, getting Amanda to glare at her. She knew her relationship with Nate probably wasn’t good, but he helped her out, and he was a good man. She needed people like that in her life, not just others who used her and became upset over her inability to do what she needed to do.

“He’s not an idiot, Meg, and it’s my choice too. I’m a big girl.”

Meg let out a sigh, drinking some of the coffee as she sat down. “I get it. And I get that your job means you need to help Lena. I just don’t like how things are going. Gene seemed like a nice guy, and I got a good read off of him.” Amanda rolled her eyes as she drank her coffee. Meg was odd, but said she could read auras and the like. What little she’d gotten about her was that the woman did New Age stuff, and enjoyed telling Amanda that she had a ‘good soul’ or whatever that meant. It wasn’t something Amanda thought about, since she tended to fail her friends, coworkers, and family so easily that they didn’t care what happened to her.

_Meg and Nate care. Benson and Tutuola care._

She pushed that thought out of her mind, though. They cared now, but after her next big screw up? It was not very likely.

“Do you want me to stay?” the question brings Amanda back to the present, getting her to look up at Meg.

Amanda doesn’t know why she feels like that’s a loaded question, and instead she lets out a long sigh, trying to hide it by sipping some of the coffee. “Do you want to stay?”

Meg let out a chuckle. “Course I do. I want to make sure you and Lena are ok. I don’t like this, and I don’t trust Nate, but someone got hurt, and this isn’t exactly a place where your job becomes easy. Besides, I wanted to ask if you want a pup.”

She looked at Meg, who’s examining the coffee cup as she explains, “He’s smaller than the others, and in general I think you’d like him. It gets very expensive, paying for all that kibble, you know.”

Amanda laughed a bit at that as Meg gives her a mock glare before saying, “I’m not joking, the little buggers are greedy bastards. So, do you want a pup or not?”

“I’ll think about it,” Amanda says as the doctor comes out to where she and Meg sit, asking, “Amanda? You’re the patient’s sister?”

Amanda frowns at that, seeing an identical look on Meg’s face before she says, “Um, no, but I brought Lena here.”

The doctor looked a bit confused before explaining what was going on to Amanda, getting Amanda to slowly nod, though her worry over this one thing, something that she’s not sure is upset or simply something else, getting her to exchange a worried looks with Meg. She expected some sort of ‘I told you so’ look, or something similar to that, telling Amanda that’s she’d messed up, that this was her fault.

None of that really shows on Meg’s face, instead the dark-haired woman giving her a look that says she’s curious over what’s going on and what Amanda will do about that. Oddly enough, Amanda isn’t sure what she’s going to do, but she hopes that it’ll help Lena.

\--

Something about Rollins is worrying, but Barba can’t put his finger on it. It’s weird, but when he comes to speak to her about the friend from AA, but there’s a weird, strange lingering… _something._ Something that makes his fingers itch and leaves a strange, sour taste on his tongue. He doesn’t know what it is, besides the fact that whoever or whatever is the cause of it, he wants to go and immediately brush his teeth or something. It’s luckily not as distracting as it might be, but to be fair, the actual case is more distracting and full of the he-said, she-said busywork that always makes him upset and grateful for the SVU team that will work so well to get everything together. The added bonus was, of course, that this was all through one of the Anonymous groups, so there only link was Rollins.

What’s worse is the case is getting Rollin’s aura to be a _mess_ , the colors dulled or somehow sickly and disgusting. The Lena woman was bad enough, but whatever it was that she was doing, it worried Barba. He wanted to call her on it, but Gene’s death and Lena’s attempt to say she was protecting herself only and act innocent only worked against her. Even her lawyer, a short woman with long blond hair and a tendency to only touch her own items, not her clients, seemed to not struggle until the AA stuff started to come out.

But she made Barba’s skin itch too, and he wanted nothing more than to never be in a room with Lily Talley again. From some of the looks Talley sends him, Barba hopes the feeling is mutual and she’ll stay out of cases like this. It’s on the second day of the trial, when Rollins is called to testify against a woman claiming to be a victim ( _like her_ sister) that some…some _thing_ walks into the room and he stiffens, confused and suddenly panicking. A glance at Talley shows she’s in a similar state, but briefly, just out of the corner of Barba’s eye, he thinks the other lawyer’s eye flashes black and a sickly shade of yellow and smells something like an electrical fire.

Barba rallies back first, thankful for his years of hiding himself, and does what he can, trying to focus on the case and not on whatever is in the room, or has walked into it. He’s doing his best to not panic either as Talley has Rollins start her testimony, talking about her friendship ( _what little there was of it_ ) with Lena and what had happened to start off the case.  What’s surprising and disturbing to him is what happens with Rollins when she obviously sees the thing in the courtroom.

She _smiles_ at it, and it’s enough to get both lawyers to look at whoever she’s obviously become comfortable around. Barba has to pull in a slight breath, barely noticeable in the courtroom, and sees Liv give him a curious, confused, worried look before he calms, enough that she calms as well.

The thing is a woman with dark hair, pale with dark, curious eyes. Her skin is made all the paler by the dark purple shirt and dark leather jacket she wears, but to his senses, what’s important is what she is underneath the face that isn’t hers. The scarred, hollowed, sickening _thing_ that is her soul, her true self, only serves to Barba hope he can manage through this. The woman’s eyes only glance at him briefly, but all of her attention is on Rollins.

But not before her eyes linger long and hard on Liv, sitting one seat and to the left of her.

\--

“We’re not going to see Nate,” is what Meg says when there’s a break, and Rollins is pacing, angry at herself, angry that she was so happy to see Meg, confused as to the way Barba and that Talley lawyer lady had acted. Mostly, though, she’s angry with herself.

_I’ve been played._

“I need to know. I need him to tell me.”

Meg rolls her eyes at that, the two near the courthouse bathroom and talking in low tones as the rooms empty for the day or lunch or whatever is going on. She wishes Barba wasn’t so good, but at the same times, she’s grateful for it. She wants to not be the one that is constantly having a ‘save me’ sign on her back like pity-party Amaro or Fin, who tries to act like a father and--.

“Oh, it’s the pretty lawyer your team has,” Meg says, getting Rollins to stiffen as Meg offers him one of those ‘I am about to try to start a fight with someone or get under their skin’ that Amanda knows so well…

_Do I? How well do I know her?_

“Hi pretty lawyer,” Meg sing-songs to Barba, who’s glare has gone to a range that Rollins never thought he had, and she’s seen him prosecute some perps who needed to be taken several pegs. Somehow the air seems like it’s starting to storm, and Rollins feels Meg’s arm go around her shoulders, “I was talking to my friend, seeing how she was doing. Do you want to come with for a coffee? My treat.”

Rollins ducked under her arm, getting away from her easily as Meg looks over at her, Barba watching with a look that says he’s concerned, but won’t call her on it like the others had.

_Like he wasn’t calling her bullshit judgment in court for the record not an hour ago._

“I…I know you wanna help, Meg, but…”

“Masters.”

Rollins stops, looking at her as Meg offers a hand and a warm, familiar smile. “Meg Masters. And I go to those meetings to listen to sob stories, but I’ve had my fair share of issues.” Another pause before she says, “I’m not gonna stop you from going to see that bastard, but I think it’s a bad idea.”

Amanda looked at Meg for a long moment before Meg sighs, saying, “I have my ID, you wanna see that too?”

Rollins shakes her head, taking Meg’s hand and shaking it. “Amanda Rollins. And…I need to do this.”

Meg rolls her eyes. “No, you don’t, but I’ll let you learn that the hard way, since you’re not listening to me. And for the record, I did warn you that Nate was a dog.”

She remembered, and nodded, feeling a smile on her face, though it was faint and not really felt. “And?”

“…and I’ll feed him to _my_ dog if he hurts you anymore.”

\--

It’s not even a second after Rollins has turned the corner that she looks back at the DA – Barbacoa or something like that. He’s short, cute, curt, a bastard when he needs to be, and a _nephilim_ trying so very, very hard to hide himself from the world.

The hall they’re in is pretty deserted, and Meg feels the need to flash her black eyes and real face, seeing the DA shift a bit back. The problem with nephilim was that you never could gauge their power or who created them, not to mention how bad things would get if she ever saw Clarence again. Suffice to say, this one had freaked the moment he saw her behind the Righteous Woman, but was still nearing that level when she’d dared to _touch_ a detective in his unit.

“Well aren’t you a sight,” Meg said before smirking at him, “Don’t worry, precious baby, I ain’t about to do anything bad to your pretty woman…she is yours, right? I’ve seen it before,” he hadn’t spoken, but she was happy to circle him now, hoping to intimidate a bit, “you finally get to see a _real_ Righteous Person, and your wings all go aflutter and it turns into a romance. All you want is to run your fingers and feathers through her, do all those naughty things to her, _protect_ her.” She smirked as he turned, the glare still on full force as Meg said, “Well, that does work other ways. I’m one of the few demons who’d know.”

“Bullshit,” Barbacoa ground out, though to his credit his wings and powers did nothing to show the sudden anger he obviously had from her riling him up, “You stay away from Rollins.”

She snorted. “Please, kid, you couldn’t stop me if you wanted to, and I don’t _have_ to go after Rollins or your pretty, Righteous Woman. There’s plenty of other fish and cops in the sea, and you’re _famous_.” She gave him a toothy grin. “Want me to knock off that upstart politician who couldn’t keep it in his pants? Better yet, want me to make his _wife_ knock him off? Poor little Suzie homemaker…or do you call it something else, _pinche cabron?_ ”

Well that hit a nerve, because suddenly it nearly tasted like the air when Clarence had been at full form and waded through her fellow demons while she fled. She’d been the only one to survive that, and no matter how much anyone called her a coward, at least she’d lived, and learned. None of them had blades to take on an Angel, and while a nephilim was tough, the human side allowed for more vulnerability at certain times.

Which was _not_ when you had one pissed off, she knew, but she was enjoying herself too much, and what was he gonna do?

“Stay away from them, and from us. They might kill you but one might get in a good shot.”

Meg snorted, seeing someone coming around the corner and getting her to chuckle when she sees who it is. The Righteous Woman looks worried and curious when she sees them, Meg giving her a smile and glancing back at Barbacoa. “Well, just remember that it’s on the table. I wouldn’t offer up services if I didn’t think I wouldn’t get something good from it.” She winked at the Woman before she left, getting the woman to watch her and seem almost like she was going to say something as she headed out. Meg wonders if she should go and check on Amanda, and some part of her wonders as well what Nate will try to say to cover up his reason for not being there for Amanda.

What really worries her, though, is the kid with Azazel’s blood, and her work as a lawyer. She wonders how many of them survived and how, not to mention how long they’ve been able to control their powers enough to not cause issues. She’s not about to confront them, not without a Kush knife at least, and not before she allows the nephilim a few more days of discomfort, and to see how well they handle such a case.

\--

“There was a freakin’ _demon_ today in court.” Her excitement was almost palpable as she took a sip from her thermos. “I can’t believe how quickly he got pissed. I hope she comes back tomorrow, it’ll make him even more freaked.”

“Have you figured out if he’s one of us or not?” her husband, tall and still in his Army camo, asks as he moves to hug her from behind, Lily stiffening only briefly before relaxing against him, glancing up to him.

“No idea, but I don’t think he’s one of us. Should I ask him to come by?”

“We can go to him,” a new voice said, calm and getting both to look over at the person coming over, red staining his lips and yellow coloring his eyes almost permanently. He was tall, with shaggy long hair and his suit a nice brown one, but the recent meal of theirs had meant he currently didn’t look like some nice puppy of a lawyer, but instead like a wolf, fresh from a kill. “The court is neutral enough – he won’t have to do something to us, but we can ask. If he is, he’s one that had the family not interrupting the work.”

Lily made a face as Andy came in, wiping his lips with a red handkerchief. He tended to do things like that, try to hide his talents and abilities, while the tallest, best of them was always open about what he was, after Cold Oaks and what they had to do.

Lily honestly liked how she could hide in plain sight, and despite what she hated about how hard it was to touch others, not without her power acting up, Jake did his best to touch her and give her all the love he could, to make up for the lack of it.

They weren’t demons, but they weren’t human. They hunted the demons for what they needed from them, and took out the monsters that couldn’t offer up a show of trying to be safe. But most importantly, they were looking for the one thing that might also give them an edge over Hell and Heaven.

A Righteous Man would help them, but the brother was gone, corrupted by the father who had tried to kill them, and his deal that had ended badly. They needed another one.

Whatever the DA was, he might be able to lead them to one.

\--

The red headed dealer looks at Amanda with a curious, kind look to her that Amanda almost doesn’t want to see. But between the drink, the hard realities of where Lena had learned everything about her, what she’d used against her, was enough to get Amanda to ignore the curious and kind looks, the gaze of the red-headed woman doing the dealing for the game she was playing. Her cards go down, a Nine of Spades covering the newest hidden card as Amanda looked over at the two cards – the Ten of Clubs and Six of Diamonds.

“Hit me.”

Silence, but she could feel the look from the dealer, which only got her to look up and start to glare before she saw an elegant, manicured and pale hand reach over and pull out a card – a Three of Hearts – to set before Amanda. “Nineteen.”

Before Amanda could speak, a hand covered the one moving to get there, and she whipped around to find Meg sitting there, not even glaring at her but giving her a look that said she was upset with something.

“Let go.”

Meg raised an eyebrow, not saying anything but sitting down and holding up a small stack of cash. “I’m beginning to think you’re about as stubborn as you are stupid when it comes to people. What are you doing here?”

“What do you think? You have eyes.” Amanda pulled her hand away, and blinked as she saw that her winnings had doubled. She briefly saw that the cards were two 8s and an Ace, resulting in loss, before the dealer waited. When Meg didn’t add money in and Amanda didn’t grab her winnings, the dealer sighed before dealing again – another sixteen to Amanda, a ten covering the hidden card.

“I think you’re letting your emotions cause you more damage then you should,” Meg said, “and I’ve been through my fair share of idiot moves, but I never made one over a guy being a whore.”

“Don’t you mean I’m the whore?”

“If the man is the one sleeping around, then no, he’s the whore. A lying, hypocritical whore, and I don’t like that you seem to think that their issues are yours.”

Amanda started to turn back, now finding herself with a good pile, her sixteen having beaten a busted twenty-two, and the dealer gathering up the cards before she held up her hand, pointing. “I’ve a bet for you,” the red-headed dealer said, her voice now carrying the odd lilt that had Amanda thinking to mobsters who’d attacked her once before, to the case that had gotten her into GA. “We play one more hand, and win or lose, you go home with your friend here,” she nodded to Meg, “and have yourself a good cry over that idiot who thought it best to hurt you so. Believe me, dearie, nothing is so stupid as to throw away money and pain on a man who can’t be bothered with ye. But if I win, you have to come here, and to my table, when that feelin’ of yours gets you to where drink and gamble is worth it. Lose, and you go to her,” she once more motioned to Meg, who looked upset with the whole thing.

Amanda looked at the chips, which had multiplied back to where they’d been when she first came in, and back up to the woman waiting for her response. She thought of what Nate had told her, to detach from love when it got to where his love and Lena’s manipulations had gotten. She thought of how upset Mama was whenever her sister got in trouble, and how it was always Amanda’s job to save her. Even when…even…

In a choice between going to Liv, who’d been abused and attacked and abused again and now had to deal with her lover being in IAB, or going to Fin who seemed willing to be a father-figure that she’d never had, or Captain Cragen who _said_ she was the best ( _does he mean that, or does he want what everyone else wanted? Every other captain, and they were so upset when_ he _got it_ ) and…and…

“Take the deal,” Meg says, getting Amanda to look at her so quickly she almost gets whiplash. “It’s a good one. Better you take that risk with her than anyone else. And you’re not gonna listen to anyone else, are you?”

The dealer gave her a curious, sour look that Meg only responded by offering up a smirk, the money put away, and Amanda found herself shaking from all the ways she didn’t want to deal with this, didn’t want to _think_ about what was going on. She wanted cards to just go until she had no more money, to drink a bit ( _I’m not a drunk, I’m not like those at AA , gambling is my vice, I drink a little if I’m upset but just…cards is my vice, and--_ ) and yet, of all the ‘deals’ she’s made, of all the bad situations she’s been in and had her autonomy taken from her in some way, shape, or form, this one was the only one where she felt…she felt…

Amanda looked at the dealer, seeing the name ‘Rowena’ on her tag, and slowly nodded. Rowena gave her a smile, and dealt.

Ace and King of Spades for Amanda, a Ten of Clubs for the Dealer over whatever card was beneath. Rowena moved the card to the small screen, and flipped over her own Ace – that of Diamonds.

“Push,” she said, “Congratulations, dearie, go home and decide later which one of us you come to.”

Amanda blinked, confused. “But…”

“I said it was one more hand, dear thing, and that was what we played. We pushed, so neither of us won or lost, so you still have your choices,” Rowena took the cards, moving them to be shuffled. “I suppose that’s the worst of it, but you’ll end up deciding later. But remember me and come to my table if that choice ends up here, like the deal said, or go off to your friend’s. Either way, you’re not gonna get yourself out of this jam, but you don’t need to be here moping about a man when you could be cryin’ elsewhere. And you need a good cry when a man does such things. It clears the head in a way gamblin’ and drinkin’ won’t.”

Amanda swallowed, slowly collecting her chips before saying, “how would you know?”

She looked at Amanda a long time, then gave her a small, sad smile. “I’ve had one good cry over a man who left me. I’ve always left the rest of them afterwards. Trust me, you need a good cry, some tea, and to curl up and not think about it for a day or two. Or to take those winnings and by something you don’t need, like a manicure or some expensive thing, a night on the town, even a dinner for one at a five-star restaurant. Blow it on something to fill you, or that you’ll throw away in a day. But not here, and not over a man.”

Amanda was still numb as she stood, with her winnings, and headed out to cash them, Meg her shadow as they walked out. She’d indeed gotten even, and Meg was giving her a look that worried Amanda. “What?”

“If she tells you to go into the back room…don’t.”

Amanda frowned, remembering the high-roller area of the back room, and finally shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll ever be stupid enough to do that.”

“Nate hit you with a good deal of stupid. My place or yours?” The question got Amanda to glare at her as Meg pointed out, “I will take the couch, geez, I’m not like that and I know you don’t swing that way. Even if you did, I don’t do pity-fucks or bi-curious. Well, some of them I do, but only if I can leave ‘em in the morning. You don’t need that, you need what the ginger told you – sleep and a good cry. And a dog, I want to show you the little runt of the litter. Figure taking care of a pet will keep you from doing anymore idiot things.”

“I…later, please?”

Meg gave her a long, sad look, then nodded. “Ok. Let’s go.”

\--

The bar closed fully at 3am, with no one left to run it. Nate’s luck at AA had been a bust too, with one of his last girlfriends taking away the one he wanted to sponsor for a few weeks. He’s barely managed to close up, upset over everything, when he spots someone inside, sitting at the bar and with a drink in her hand. He recognizes the hair and dark dress instantly, and considers leaving before she speaks up.

“I’m very disappointed in you, boyo. Yes indeed. You wanted to make sure you could run your place effectively, and I told you the consequences if I found someone you messed with.” Rowena slowly turned to look at him, the most expensive glass of wine slowly turning in her hand. “But you brought one to my doorstep, and her demon with her. I’ll not be found out by anyone, and certainly not because _you_ were too scared to go to a damned trial until you were called.” She gracefully slipped off the chair, “But definitely not because you would go and talk about your conquests to someone so very, very unhinged.”

“Look, I didn’t think Lena would—w—“ Nate coughed, starting to choke as Rowena took a sip of her glass, making a face at the taste.

“You sell swill and mark it up,” she slowly dumped it onto his head as he fell to the floor, attempting to breath as blood also colored the floor with the red wine. “And now you’re making excuses. I so _hate_ excuses. Besides, don’t you know? No one is allowed to mess with that team.” She knelt next to him as he began to black out. “The Winchesters are sniffing around that group, and between their DA and the new captain of the squad? Oh, Nathaniel, you made one grave mistake in putting her back into the halls that I work at.”

She didn’t even bother to look back as he fell over, jerking on the floor and coughing up his own blood. At the doorway, she muttered and clicked her fingers. Behind her, the dead man slowly rose, and went to clean up the mess. He’d leave town in a bit, saying he needed ‘time to think’, and the spell would leave the boy after he made it somewhere secluded. She didn’t need that girl back, not when there was a demon with a leash to a hellhound involved. Rowena might be able to kill her, but not now.

Not when those upstarts were trying to get at her for allowing a cop they could corrupt to leave the hall. But a reminder that she was the only one powerful enough, old enough, to stand up to the man in the back room…well, that was good enough to keep them out of her business for a bit. And she liked Manhattan, and its fine cuisine and places to stay. She liked that she made enough to spend on such things without causing undo panic by killing off uppity maître de’s or housekeeping or even just people at receptions to grand hotels and spas.

Oh, but she loved the spas. A death and an upset with a group who had something powerful in their midst was not about to get her away from her spa days, not for all the corrupt cops in the world.


End file.
